UOB – The solid local bank

Wee Cho Yaw has spoken, UOB will grow organically and will not join the acquisition frenzy. Neither will UOB join the ‘foreigners are talent’ fad and go on a mindless recruitment to replace local talents with foreign ‘talents’.

Many banks with foreign CEOs are impatient to prove their worth and to justify their fat salaries. Acquisition to grow the bank is a simple way, instant trees, instant fat. The only issue is the cost. But many would not mind paying the Singapore Premium in the acquisition trail. What is the problem? Everything is OPM and if the acquisition is successful, more salary hikes and bonuses. If fails, it is OPM, just take the golden handshake and walk away. It is simply head I win, tail you lose.

Mercenaries have no qualms about spending OPM to make that strike. They need to justify their worth and pay fast. And they work to make sure they get more pay and fast. They invest for quick profit.

Another type of mercenaries is the fund managers. They invest because they have too much money in their war chests, all OPM. They can’t keep their money in the biscuit tins. They must put them to work, to work for them and for the shareholders. When fund managers invest because they need to invest and not when there is a good buy, you can be sure they will invest even in shit.

Wee Cho Yaw said it, UOB would look out for opportunities but only when the buy fits and the price is right. He is not going to be a bloody fool paying huge premiums just to join the bandwagon and be on the news that UOB is also doing the right thing. A solid conservative banker does not gamble with his money and has no need to rush to spend it. Every cent he is spending must be meaningful, not eventful.

 And UOB is going to be a local bank and would not be open to the exploits of foreign mercenaries. He has appointed Hsieh Fu Hua to replace him as Chairman. He is not angmoh or foreigner crazy. He does not have a crush like an 18 year old going gaga with anything novel. This is a solid banker that runs his bank like a bank, not a casino.

With a local talent team, is the UOB doing less well than those under foreign mercenaries?

MH370 – What happened to the mangosteens?

After searching for more than a month in the Antarctics, they are still unable to locate the mangosteens. But who cares, or why would anyone be interested in the mangosteens? Are they worthless, no owners? Or have the rightful owner of the mangosteens already collected them and put them under safe keeping?

The mangosteens, 4 tonnes of them, heavier than a 3 tonner, were casually mentioned by the Malaysian authorities and quickly forgotten as inconsequential. Were they so innocent? It is a fact that the mangosteens were not in season in Malaysia. Where were they from, who was the owner and where were the mangosteens going? Does anyone want to know what is this ‘mangosteen’ thing? It is so obvious that the mangosteens were not mangosteens. What were they? Why were the Malaysian govt not even interested to find out?

Let me suggest a very simple theory on the story of the mangosteens. They were the forbidden fruits. The Malaysian Govt were tipped off on the mangosteens. They were told of a scheme to retrieve the mangosteens by the informer. The Malaysian Govt went along. The flight MH370 was allowed to fly as scheduled not to alarm anyone. The air traffic controllers went through routines and everything was normal.

At the border of Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace, the aircraft took a dip and disappeared from radar with its transponder switched off. It then turned west, climbed back to normal cruise level and flew all the way to Butterworth airbase under full radar contact, landed, unloaded the mangosteens and all the passengers, and flew off just like another MAS aircraft.

After that all the disinformation appeared that the aircraft had headed to the Antarctics either on auto pilot or flown by a suicidal pilot. Both did not make any sense. And somehow the aircraft could send out blips to satellites to let them guess where it was or going. And conveniently they applied the Doppler Effect for the first time to masturbate such information and concluded that it must be going to the Antarctics when the aircraft could have landed in Butterworth with all its mangosteens delivered to whoever that was behind this hoax.

The aircraft could now be flying daily under another MH callsigns all over Malaysia and its foreign destinations. Where are the pilot and co pilot? Are their families raising a ruckus on their disappearance, grieving or unable to grieve, or life was normal at home?

Just a very simple theory of the mangosteens that came from no where, going nowhere, no one wants to know why or where.

And here comes Obama, the President of an Empire, calling on Najib to say thank you for your assistance. We are now friends.

The above is all my imagination that is good enough to be turned into a movie.

Kopi Level - Green

Are NSmen really daft?

Apparently many people in high places think so. In the news today some are talking about giving the NSmen a stake in country to fight and die for? Just wake up huh? When we first became an independent country, not yet a nation, the first and foremost thought in the minds of the founding leaders was to give the people a stake here through home ownership. That is as simple as ABC. But through the years, people got lost in the maze of money and decided that citizens need not have a stake, like a flat in the country, to want to fight and die for the country. The NSmen are so daft, just order them to fight they will fight even if they don’t have any stake here.
 
How many citizens who have done NS are deprived, banned, from buying and owning a flat from HDB but forced to buy from in the resale market, and allowing foreigners to make a pile from them? Is this not sickening? Who forced our citizens to make foreigners rich by buying their public flats just to have a place to live? Why are citizens deprived from homeownership in their own country, the country they are to defend and die for while foreigners and new citizens could happily buy public flats?
 
No, the NSmen are not daft. It is the policy makers that are daft. And they still think that they could enjoy the good life, living in sprawling landed properties while the NSmen would be so daft to fight and die to protect them. The NSmen today are as highly educated as the daft policy makers. Many are even more qualified than them. You mean these highly qualified NSmen cannot think like these fools?
 
Why are many highly qualified Sinkies leaving this island? Dunno, don’t want to know? And some think they are very wise, to go overseas to attract our citizens to return to this island. What can you offer to them to return? Why should highly qualified Sinkies return to pay a ransom for a dog’s kennel call private condo when they could use half the ransom to buy a sprawling landed property overseas?
 
Why would NSmen who are prohibited by law from buying public flats want to fight and die for this country? So difficult to figure out? I think so, when the brain is only the size of a pea. Fortunately, after nearly 50 years of sleeping, some have awaken and remembered that this basic need for a home, for a stake in the country is the foundation to build a nation. You cannot build a nation of daft NSmen who have nothing and would be stupid enough to die for those who have plenty.

Japanese Imperialism: The mask and gloves are down

The Abe Administration is not going to hide anything from their intention to revive Japanese Imperialism. They have taken so many actions to defy and provoke China and the Koreas with the backing of the Americans. The condescending attitude to the Americans, hands in glove with the Japanese, cannot be hidden anymore. The Japanese knew very well that the Americans would have to go along with them if they want the Japanese to be a part of their pivot to Asia to counter the rise of China. The Americans are now the willing master to let the Japanese rearm and to become another big military power like its past. It is a marriage of the American mafia and the Yakuza.
 
Abe has repeatedly been provoking the Chinese and the Koreans over the territorial disputes and claiming that those islands were Japanese. He has led a movement to rewrite Japanese history to erase its invasion of Asian countries and the barbaric records or killings and lootings of these countries. The comfort women that Japan forced onto Asian women were to be rewritten as Asian women volunteering to be prostitutes to Japanese soldiers. The Nankin Massacre would be whitewashed as fake or nothing of that sort.
 
The visits to the war criminals in Yasukuni Shrine have been revived and will become a routine ceremony to honour war criminals, Japanese military aggression and invasion of its neighbouring countries.
 
Japan will be allowed to play a bigger military role in the region including fighting on the side of American allies. Abe’s latest move was to set up a military base in the southern most island near Taiwan and the disputed islands of Diaoyu/Senkaku.
 
The Japanese pacific constitution will be amended for Japan to resume its Imperial past and be a military power.
 
The conniving Americans are in this with the Japanese up to their necks. The USA has unleashed the most aggressive war dog of Asia to take on China and is not holding it back. The Japanese have been given the green light to take on China and the Koreans. Hopefully that would be all, and not the rekindling dream of the Japanese Empire over Asia.
 
With the aggressive and ambitious Japanese on the loose, and with the Americans behind them, war in Asia is only a matter of when. Japanese Imperialism and remilitarization is on the go. China cannot afford to be soft while the Japanese keep on advancing in every front to challenge its influence and to hold on to the loots of war time Japanese Imperialism. The two Koreans too would be in the cross hairs of Japan’s military expansionism.
 
The message of the 150 lawmakers visiting Yasukuni is simply that they are proud of what they had done during the Second World War, no shame and would do it again. Asia is waiting to be on fire.
 
The message from Obama is that the Americans would support and protect its allies, in this case Japanese expansionism. On the other hand he would want China to betray its allies and restrain them, in this case North Korea.

Kopi Level - Yellow

The AEC or Asean musical chair

When the Asean Economic Community comes into effect it will turn the employment scene in Asean into a game of musical chairs. So far we have been assured by ministers in Parliament that there will be no free flow of professionals to work in any Asean country. If that is the case then the musical chair game may not work. If it is in the same nature as that of CECA with India, then this game will be played ten times more vigorously.
 
All the PMEs and workers would want to find a job in Sin City. With the relative high pay and excellent currency exchange rates, it is a sure win situation for every Asean country workers to get a job here. So when the music is played, all will be rushing for the Singapore chairs. When the music stops, every Singapore chair will probably have ten players sitting on it. The rest of the chairs would likely to be vacant waiting for takers.
 
And who will be left standing? The Sinkies of course, and it is unlikely for them to take up the empty chairs in the other Asean countries. The music can be repeated over and over again and the end result will be the same, Sinkies will be left standing and with many chairs from the Asean countries not taken.
 
Don’t ask me why it will end up this way, but this is how the game of musical chairs will be played. Sinkies’ idea of putting a piece of tissue paper to chope their chairs would be greatly disappointed. The foreigners would not play the same rule. They would throw away the tissue papers.

Kopi Level - Yellow