Tuesday, April 26, 2005

What's the point?

UPDATE!!
Okok, I have to insert some shameless plug in here.
Please do watch CNA (Channel News Asia) on Monday (02 May' 2005)!
8:30pm, "Local Express" on CNA!!

You'll get to see cherub on tv. :P

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whats the point of laws?
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whats the point of teachers?
"What's the point of teaching when only the learned are willing to learn."
- Relentless (1980-Present A.D.)
Those that need the most guidance, are those that refuse to be guided.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a conversation's worth

cherub:
i am [supposed to be] a financial planner, remember?

but i am helping pple who are savy, who are already rich.

those pple who are stubborn....i can't help them...and i'm suddenly quite sadden that these pple are going to work and be poor their whole life

C.Planet says:
hiyah....its their choice wat...even jesus also cant save everyone....

"The rich are the ones fetching returns over 10 percent off their wealth, while the poor are deluded with 0.125 percent."
- Cherub (1980- Present A.D.)

What's the point of so called financial planning when those who need it most are those who are most sceptical?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regarding the earlier post abt teachers, I wasn't very clear and specific.

Just to clarify, I wasn't arguing about people's ambitions and aims in life when they do a job for the sake of holding a job.
I am fine with that. I believe most of us don't choose our first job, they choose us.
And any job is fine as long as it brings home the bacon.

However, teaching is different.
If i don't do my job well, my clients can jolly well get another agent. At most, he may suffer some losses and miscalculation in his assets. It won't make a huge dent in his life.

if a teacher don't do his job well, its gonna affect a lot of people in their whole life. Right from the start.

I'm pretty sure I had a blessed life. With a good family, and enrolled in pretty decent schools from primary till university. And I dare say most of my friends in the same social circle, having reached university level, belongs to the better half of society.
Most of us haven't seen the unfortunate, uglier side of life.

And for these people, especially those with a poor family background, the teacher is one that is going to decide their life.
Its the teacher that will be a role model.
That will motivate them to choose their paths in their life.


To the teachers that are guiding many many others, a big thank you.
I hope MOE increases ur remuneration soon. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To those teachers who don't like their jobs,
who slept with their students (2 in last year slept with their underaged students, if i recall correctly)
and mostly recently, a lecturer-caught-buying-sex-with-underaged-boys,

Go be an insurance agent or something.

Not as good as roulette, but Safer.

I was looking at the 14 successful bidders for the casinos, sorry, i meant integrated resorts and I wonder how I can invest my money in its favour.

Two of these companies are going to win, and their stocks are going to rise...
so picking a winner, thats 1:7 odds.

still a risky bet:- picking a 1:7 winner in stocks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

inevitably my attention shifts to the 3 big players.

1) Kerzner International Ltd and CapitaLand Ltd
2) MGM Mirage and CapitaLand
3) Harrah's Entertainment Inc and Keppel Land Ltd

Thats right. Government-linked companies are involved in them.


Now now, fellow economic graduates, journalists and taxi-drivers, debate all you want abt how neutral (or biased) the government is in allocating commerical projects but I think its quite a sure bet that one of these players is going to land a bid, aint it?

and US$2 billion investment for each resorts.
and these companies will need to raise some of their funds via bonds.

What better place than the Singapore bond markets? a good cheap source of funds, plus its one of the government's aims to broaden the bond markets, and a GLC is definitely going to look towards it for funds.

Other non-GLCs that win the bids are probably going to turn towards the bond markets for their fundings as well....so i guess i don't hv to predict the 2 winners anyway.

hmmm.... Bond funds.
Hah!! i just left a bit of money with them.

Maybe the profits when the price of the bond fund rises....can pay for my 1 year casino membership.......
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yeah, I'm bored studying.

Economics of Technology.
8 weeks of work => 4 days of slogging

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Let there be Jobs and careers

I have tons of friends who are already teachers or going to be teachers.

Not surprising, since I'm from Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (faculty of ASS, i always say) where many disciplines have a relatively narrow range of career prospects.

I'm fine with teachers. I'm fine with people who enter Arts and Social Sciences because they want to be teachers. I am fine with people who love to teach.

what I cannot stand are teachers who are in this trade because they cannot find any other jobs.


neofik says:
[faculty of] arts supposed to open their mind. if anything, it has only conformed them to an even narrower path.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

there are people who enter Faculty of Engineering because they don't know what they want to do with their life.
and engineering seems the "safest" choice.
Hence, they occupy a space that others may value more, and expand resources training them in a career they would not take.

...we see students who choose Science in JC because they don't know what they want to do.
so Science is the "safest" choice.

...we see students who choose science subjects after sec2 'streaming' because they don't know what they want to do.
so science subjects are the "safest" choices.

how many engineer students would become engineers? they are here only because the govt encouraged them to do so! same for the IT students [who are now marooned with a 'worthless' degree] a while ago! same for Faculty of Life science students [whose honours requirements has just been reduced to increase the honours intake]!
mixed quotes from friends

[note: remarks in paratheses are mine]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The casino integrated resort issue is boring me.
As an economist, I say go for it.
As a singaporean, i'm, surprisingly, against it.

To my former maths teachers: I still do not understand the sum. How does gaining 35,000 jobs against causing 50,000 families to suffer equal a plus?


Ms Goh Sai Luan (The Straits Times, April 22, 2005)

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Pre - sexyblogger

The sexyblogger project, of which xiaxue posed in a rather "sexy" image......


the sexy xiaxue Posted by Hello

........ and which mrbrown and mr miyagi posed in a "not-so-sexy" way.....


the not-so-sexy mrbrown Posted by Hello


the ok-sexy-mrMiyagi Posted by Hello

........ is not entirely new.


Apparently, miss Angela, of the canon advertisment fame was the first.
(if you read mrbrown frequently, he "browned" her once. OK that sounds really pornographic. Nothing of that sort, u dirty bastard.)

yes, she's the chio angmo whose bikini flew off and got snapshot in the advertisement while playing beach volleyball, and NO, you lusty pervert, you can't see anything. And YES, she was wearing additional protection. If you must know, i think the girls called it nipple tape or something like tat. ouch.

all these dirty-old-men in the forum. tsk tsk.


Apparently she has a similar sexyblogger concept much earlier, except she didn't meant for it to be sexy.

The "blur sotong of the month". The very original sexy blogger :P


the sexyblogger Posted by Hello

Yes, I know the photo is not of her sticking a tongue out. But I pasted this photo here to remind all u dirty old men (come on, stop denying it) that she's blissfully attached.
and, I really like this photo a lot.

sweeeet.

Okok...here's the lastest blur-sotong of the month.


Blur Sotong of Mar'05 Posted by Hello

The Brown Man

You know you are reading too much mrbrown when

cherub: there! thats mr brown *pointing at tv*
bro: who?
cherub: mr brown!
bro: who is mrbrown?
cherub: u dunno who is mrbrown?wah, u always watch him on tv
bro: *confused*
cherub: mr brown ah! mr brown!
bro: Oh...MR BEAN.

bro: who is mrbrown?


that was embarrassing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, yeah, i think i grew up on mrbrown's articles.
the guy who "blogged" even before the term "blogging" was invented.

I remember chancing upon his website (no, I was not looking for porn. *wink wink* earlier mrbrown reader would know that his website, "browntown", got confused with another porn website) when his Singapore National Education was just in the mere 40 plus.

(now i remember why i didn't do well for my exams!)

I think i spent the next few weeks gorging myself with the entire archive of his Singapore National Education.
Yes it is that satirical, it is that funny.

Now that blogging is in vogue, it seems that he mellowed, and now writes in a different style. More blogger style, and less "SNE" style, i guess.
The old mrbrown seems like a mac evangelist, a heavy duty designer, and pokes fun at the govt at every opportunity he gets. Like a white collar kopitiam uncle, if you ask me.

The old browntown was mostly a one-man show. Now he's flanked by many talented bloggers. And he's reaching out more than through his SNE. You get to read abt his family, and most recently, listen to his ipodcast "radioshow" with other talented bloggers.

In fact, for those people who have not yet visited his website, where have you been?
This is the man!
www.mrbrown.com

And yes, SNE is now Part 106. You can have the entire 106 series here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know mrbrown, you should start a political party or something. You can try and bring about some real changes here. (the key word is try) I think you would be a more viable opposition party, having the capability to amass talents.

You can call ur party the Brownies Party. Ok ok, that was silly.
How about Brown Democratic National Party? I promise i would vote for you.

(as long as I still get my HDB upgrading)

Friday, April 15, 2005

Efficiency of World class Govt.

And so I waded into the red tape.

Murking through the tons of technical terms and legal jargons, I can't find the answer I need from the business registration website, ACRA. So I did the next best thing, or so I thought.

I emailed them.

My very first reply comes in the form of giving me lots of urls. All pointing to pages within ACRA.

NABEI. You think I emailed u for fun is it?? Obviously I already read all your websites and can't find what I'm looking for!
These govt pple think I can't even do a simple job of browsing their websites? can't they just answer my queries straight to the point?
civil servants!

So I did the next best thing, or so I thought.

I replied their email.

And this time, it was better.
The officer called me up. (I left my handphone number in my email)

Nice, except that .....

officer: Hi sir, is this cherub? I'm calling from ACRA.
Cherub: ACRA?
officer: you sent us an email.
Cherub: Oh, that ACRA. Yeah, I had some enquires.
officer: Yes sir, I am here to help you. Let me give you some hyperlinks...
cherub: huh?
officer: take down these hyperlinks...... you can go there and read them.

!%$#!@$@ *VOMIT BLOOD*

So he called me personally on my hp to give me hyperlinks?

I already read your first email, I already told you I cannot get the answers from the websites.
And the govt officer called me up for.....?
These pple think that I can't read properly?
Civil servants!!

So I cut him off and used very simple english (just in case he's a PSC scholar).
Told him that the website doesn't give me the answers, and I gave him my scenario and questions.

He replied matter-of-fact that the agency cannot give me the answers I am looking for and does not advise me on those matters.
Sigh.


And great, after our conversation ended, he proceeded to email me again....

....to give me the hyperlinks.
ARGH, CIVIL SERVANTS!!!


Alright, now now, I hope you guys finally realise why I refuse to work for the government.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr Miyagi pointed out that the e-filing for taxes has operating hours.
Wow, and we thought that the internet is 24-hours monster!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hmph! suspiciousbastard thinks that "saving money" is a no-brainer.
you would be surprised at my clients. People who are totally lost.
But those are not the annoying ones.

what annoy me are clients who think they know it all, and when I try to explain more of it to them, they dismiss it off as "i know already why don't u just do this and this"

madam, trust me. if i can just "do this and this" for you, i would.

And yes, an hour later, she would inevitably goes "oh, why like this, is like tat, meh?".

You already said "i know i know", wad.

Or they would give me "disclaimers":
eh, i am not confirming to buy leh, u don't need to put in so much efforts. u just help me "this and this" can liao.
"u don't need to do those, i may not buy in the end, just help me "this and this"
"i may not buy leh, don't do so much"


Eh, what is "full effort", what is "a little bit effort".
Sorry, I economist, i don't know how to quantify efforts.
I am just helping out, and i know u won't buy (I already knew you won't buy when i know u're a female), but if I am to advise you, i'd better help.
You can't expect me to give half-baked help, right?



Nothing beats the client that purchased and cancelled the plan in the same day.
Because someone else told her its not a good idea.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Red tape binds us all

Absolutely the best tetris I ever played.

Go look at it, trust me.
Try beating the highscores.

via Buttermilk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Been tied up with red tapes and accounting issues lately.
Now I know why accountants are paid so much. Those sharks. wait, thats the lawyers.

So to make it easier for us heartlanders to own and operate our business, HDB and URA started the "Home-Office Scheme"...

i see.

So in order to register a home-office, i need...
  1. to install one 1 x 2kg ABC Dry Chemical Powder fire extinguisher to the office area
  2. to install one single-station smoke detector to the office area.
Smoke detector?
Can my maid be considered a smoke detector?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

how not to be a spy.

The guide (Click here) to our splinter spy-wanna be.

Absolut Hilarious.


How to react if you get 'discovered' by the Jaga. Posted by Hello

Again, via Buttermilk.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I got this impression when I first joined the insurance line.
And this is getting reinforced as I started researching to try a new business.

Apparently, the more education u have, the more risk-adverse u get.

The highly educated are the one with more at stake, they tend to lose more if they fail.
Having invested so much in their current status, they have a larger incentive to protect themselves.
In addition, they have more choices available for them.

In any job, they will tend to look for better jobs. Look for better future.
If u always look at Recruit's job section, you can never do well in your current job.


So these pple, how do you expect them to venture, to start their business?

As a friend of mine put it,


"the n'levels, the o'levels pple, u think they care a hoot abt their jobs and what others think about their job? they don't think about the future. their concern is NOW. They want to work now, and earn now. they don't hesitate when they see an opportunity. they know risks, they know danger, but they just know they have to do it. Its NOW or never."


That, my friend, is the driving force for the uneducated. (and the "never" for the graduates)

Saturday, April 9, 2005

Cherub Finance 2

For those who got inspired to bring out ur fixed deposits for better deals, save a few grands for this great UOB deal.

From 9th April till 30th April, if you open an UOB FlexiDeposit, an inital deposit of $5000 would net you $50 cash.

Minimum requirement is that you need to leave the $5,000 there for at least 3 months and they would credit you with $50.

$50 for $5000 (3mths), a simple calculation means an interest of 4% per annual.

There is a surcharge of $30 if you close the account before 6mths. And a surcharge of $2 per month if your average daily balance falls below $3000.

So even if you factor these in & u leave $5000 for 6 mths, a $50 interest means 2% per annual.
This 2% excludes the additional interest rate they give u for your account.

Thats pretty good. And thats not including an 514mbytes Ipod Shuffle that you can get at a special price of $129. (although I don't like the Ipod Shuffle)

The ipod Shuffle, with no LCD, no ability to select songs, no HDD, only flash memory. A lack of feature promoted as a feature, only Apple can do that.


I really like this UOB deal a lot. I'm setting up a sole account and probably a few joint accounts with my siblings. And no, I'm not working for UOB (or whatever banks). I just like to share some good things. So if u have some funds, go get some higher-interest stuff like this special deal.

And thanks to KnightofPentacles for his earlier comments on bonds and securites.

See? information is wealth.

Friday, April 8, 2005

Cherub Finance Pte Ltd

Have been checking out all the Fixed Deposit Rates in Singapore, so thought of sharing all these information with people like you and me.

information is wealth.

But cherub, you say, I thought u are a risk taker! I thought u always put your money in units trusts and shares.

Its always good to put some money in the most liquid investment, and Fixed Deposits offers slightly better rate than saving accounts, don't they? And with a few months of adjustment and planning, you can have a good financial plan of liquid fixed deposits.

Beside some pple just can't take risk. *stares at beloved mother*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read in the Straits Times a few weeks ago that "Bank of East Asia" (BEA) offers the highest interest rate in town, for a minimum $1,000 deposits. (thanks BeeKuan for the verification!)

1 month 1.56250%
3 months 1.68750%
6 months 1.75000%
9 months 1.78000%
12 months (forgot, but slightly higher than 1.78%)


I think most of our families put our fixed deposits with local banks and/or Hong Leong Finance (Singapore's largest finance companies) but their rates are really pathetic. The BEA's 1 mth interest is higher than HongLeong's 12 mths interest.

In fact, when I went to liquidate Hong Leong's fixed deposits, even their own tellers were surprised at the interest rates. They even asked me to verify that the rates are not investment-linked.
Oh pls.


For the higher-heeled.
Citibank offers 2.0% for $200,000 for 2 years Fixed Deposits.

If you prefer local banks (i always prefer Singapore institutions, support them because of national pride. lol), you can go to UOB.
UOB offers less than 2.0%, BUT...here's the trick.

Just go to any UOB branch, inform them of your plan, let them know that you are aware of Citibank's 2.0% rate for fixed deposit.
They will then match Citibank's rate.

Cherub says, support local business!!

Tips from Cherub Loanshark Finance Pte Ltd.

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Water on Mars

NASA's Mars probe just sent back the latest picture.


They have discovered water on Mars!!!


They found water on mars, finally.


Got it via AcidFlask.

Monday, April 4, 2005

After Thesis

If I am to establish an internet business that sells goods online...

What kind of goods should I retail online?


I'm pondering over internet business and internet retailing, and I want to get some ideas of what goods are suitable to sell online.

Leave your comments, pls!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thought of the day:

I wrote 5 articles (7 if u include the 2 April's Fool articles) in the crucial last 2 days of my thesis submission period.

And I wrote nil for the days after liberation.

Funny that I got all the motivation to write during the most "busy" and supposedly most "stressful" period of my academic life.

Funny that I couldn't find time to proof-read my thesis for the 2nd time (its 40 freaking pages, for pete's sake) and yet wrote 2 blog entries in a span of an hour.

I guess this goes hand-in-hand with my avid observations that most things are fun to do when you can't afford to do it.

During exams, that flash game seems to be the most enjoyable thing on earth.
After exams, u wonder aloud who the hell play such a boliao game.

Shopping before exams seems soooo therapeutic.
Shopping after exams seems so tiring and a terrible waste of time (note: This does not apply to some all girls.)

And you have no idea why there are tons of brilliant must-watch blockbusters during examination.
and immediately after exams, nothing to watch liao.
not even the "TV-infommericals" that you are so drawn to it during your late-nights examination period.

And yes, I got totally nothing to blog about.
Nothing to do.
Bored.
I'm directionless.

Give me another thesis to do.
oooooooonly kidding.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Funny that my own personal friends are those who don't leave comments nor tags.
Only those who got to know me via the blogs leave comments.

Funny.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Happy April's Fool

Happy April's Fool!!


I'm really touched by some of my friends who called and sms-ed just to check on me.
and lots of regards about me closing the blog
I'm really sorry, I won't have played this joke if I realised you guys thought I was collapsing and was concerned about me.

And those who thought I was going to OZ...(lol...MSN nick of the year)
and I promised chocolates and Havaianas slippers for lots of pple.


sorry! Happy April's Fool!

Once again, sorry if these jokes I played offended you.
Special thanks to Sheena, for your concern and encouragement.
And thanks Fishie, for your overseas call. :)
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