Malaysia Money Matters

Firstly, on a macroeconomic level, I think this is a good move. Increasing disposable income will increase consumption, hence increase overall economic output - thus the economy will continue to grow. Taking a more nuanced view - even if a lot of the increased income flows to debt reduction, this means less pressure on capital requirements on bank balance sheets. However, revenues will suffer slightly in the short term but in the medium term, this frees up capital to lend - this will stimulate growth. So the debate is raging on social media on what should one do and there are of course all sorts of accusations and pictures of calculations showing how much you will pay on GST, taxes etc .. there are so many angry people out there... sigh My suggestion is very simple - You Do What is Best for YOU . Don't Listen To People Telling You What They Want You to Do Just Because That Is What THEY Want To Do Themselves! So what is best for you? I've broken it down to 3 main categ...

So the good news is that EPF announced a dividend of 6.35% - which is the highest for many years.. or even a decade plus. The not-so-good news was that over the weekend, I decided to do a bit of special cooking and since I rarely do grocery shopping, the price of food really has gone up! Though of doing lamb shanks but the price, oh my... 2 frozen pieces came up to RM54 at Cold Storage. Yes, granted I was shopping at the posh places but STILL?! Then a bunch of celery (organic it seems) - the smallest bunch was RM6?! For double the quantity at AEON Big, the price was RM1.90! faint. Not blowing my own horn but yes, my pay is pretty decent. Even so, these prices are an eye opener for me. Either that or I have to disabuse myself of the notion of my supposed socio-economic class and start having lower tastes, then not so 'heart-pain' to have to pay through my nose for something I want to eat. Sigh....

A little bird told me that Bank Negara is adamant about pushing down the merchant interchange fee by as much as 60% i.e. from 1.2% down to 0.5%! The banks are obviously not happy about it because it is going to be an immediate hit on revenues. However, for those banks who are big on merchant acquisition, the impact may not be as bad IF this drop in rates brings about a large growth in volume due to wider acceptance. So the volume growth off-sets the drop in earnings per transaction. To me, this is a good thing because one of the resistant points towards more cash-less transactions is the merchant rate. Retailer don't want to accept cards for small transactions because they contend (which I think is bullshit) that they don't make money off these. Please, bitch, you shouldn't be in business if that is the case. Unfortunately, this move is one-sided in that it is only about the MDR but the majority of people out there don't even have a credit card (like 70% of the ...

You gotta laugh, isn't it? If it was all so tragic to begin with, that is... Needless to say, the fallout of the 13th General Election continues in many permutations - ironically, many pro-BNers are very bitter about "winning" while PR has been rather politically astute in quickly catching on the mood to continue drumming up support through rallies and such - which I think is a waste of time but you know, it's all just political drama.... I was quite taken aback by the very acrimonious racial rants by those aligned to the BN government, so much so that I had to unfriend an old schoolmate (was never close to him anyway) when he was spouting a lot, really a lot, of very offensive anti-Chinese things on his Facebook. I'd rather not have to see that, thank you - I have very close Malay friends and I am not what he paints all Chinese to be in his postings. But no point in confronting, why exacerbate matters? Dia nak bodoh macam tu, biarlah - maybe he needs to get i...

Many people, including those in the government, think that credit cards are bad, bad, bad. So is fire, doesn't stop you from using it, does it? I would argue that if the rules are set properly (not arbitrarily as they are now), AND taking into account lessons learnt from Taiwan and South Korea on how to jump start your domestic economy but without most of the dire problems that can come with a consumption-led boom, then listen up: But first, some background. There are about 11-12 million working adults in this country. Only about 4 million actually hold credit cards. What about the rest, you ask? Based on the Bank Negara guidelines, they don't qualify due to their lower income or lack of income documentation, say hawkers etc who deal in cash and don't keep proper records. The consequence of that is that these individuals are essentially LOCKED OUT of the formal banking system, so who do they turn to when there is a need for cash - you got it, the loan sharks. Why do...

I actually didn't see this until a week after it was published in the Star. I got the photo off Facebook! hee Firstly, there's something weird about how they have classified "Upper Middle" as having an income of RM10k a month now in 2012 - reason being, if you see that back in the 80's, the ratio of  UM income to Lower income is about 8 times. It can't be that now in 2012, the ratio is only 3.3 times? I believe the ratio should be the same - so Upper Middle class household income now SHOULD be around RM26,000 a month. That makes more sense. Apart from that, the rest of the numbers make sense and shows that the middle class is being squeezed. Taking the ratio of annual income to house price, back in the 80's a middle class household only needs 4 times annual income for a double storey house. Now it is 7 times. Actually, the upper middle is also squeezed even if we took 26k as the benchmark, because back then, an upper middle class household als...

"100 birds in the South" symbolises many opportunities coming your way. Why so? Let's break it down: South = represented by the Phoenix, Queen of the Birds 100 = shorthand for 'lots'  Element of the South = fire (luck that comes from fame, being known - not necessarily being a celebrity but being known in your field of work, thus opportunities will 'fly' to you, see?) So, displaying an image of 100 birds will activate this kind of luck for you.  Ok, I'll admit, it is all quite tied up with Chinese culture but at the crux of it all, I think it is a form of neuro-linguistic programming that has developed over thousands of years so people think it's mumbo-jumbo. But it's not.  Anyway, instead of spending a lot of money [that you DO have ;) but don't want to use] on buying a display piece that might be too chinois for your current home décor - here's what I did: Found a beautiful National Geographic poster on bird migrati...

Just realised that I didn't write anything for the whole of 2011! It was an eventful year actually. Got promoted early in the year :) Not to sound ungrateful but it was kind of expected because in terms of meeting the set goals, KPIs etc which was done - so it came in as promised. Only thing was a bit delayed because it was supposed to have been in Sept 2010 but it came in March 2011. Ah well, better late than never. So with that, the pay jump was about.. almost 40% which was kewlness. Then the big surprise was in Sept 2011 after coming back from the Korea trip, that I got a pay increase! That really came out of the blue, was probably too busy working and stuff - just doin' and doin' and doin' and the reward just came! Oiyooo... this time, was about a 20% but seriously, this actually made my pay rise by almost 100% within a year. Yes, in just one year. Like. Oh. My. Goddess. I'm not saying this to boast, I'm still pinching myself to see if this is...