Sport-betting encourages youngsters into gambling

It is good that the issue of sport-gambling license was put to rest by the PM as the government has decided not to issue the controversial gambling license to Ascot. Many have argued that what is the fuss of having the football gambling while we already have the 4-digit, lotto and also big sweep? More so we have a big casino in Genting?

The anti-gambling moves either by NGOs or certain politicians should be lauded. Although the illegal betting is said to worth up to RM 20 billion a year and the government stands to reap in lucrative taxes if it legalized sport gambling, its negative effects particularly on the low income group is simply outweighing any beneficial effects.

Gambling is no good, be it legal or otherwise and we can’t deny that there are people simply ruin their life because of gambling. Gambling would not kill, it is greed that would land a gambler into trouble. I must admit that I’m a frequent 4-D buyer, but never in my lifetime have I borrowed money for gambling. Similarly, I buy stocks for investment purposes only with my hard earned money, never would I borrow money to invest in share market.

But again, when sport-betting is legalized, we may attract more youngsters who are the main supporters of football games such as those of Premier League or other European football leagues into gambling. By legalizing sport-betting, it’s no different like we are encouraging our children into gambling.

When it is illegal, probably some will be hesitating but when it is legal, well, it is just like all hell broke loose.

Clash of the Titans

Fans of English football were left heart broken when England were defeated by Germany 1-4 in the round of 16 last night. Although England were not playing their best, and clearly not up to the reputation as the strongest English team for the past 44 years, but many EPL fans were still hinging high hopes for their star players such as Rooney, John Terry, Stevie G, Lampard and so on. Sadly, our own football league is not something that could be proud of and thus many of us become the hardcore supporters of MU, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and so forth.

When opening up my face-book early in the morning, there were so many remarks by my FB friends on the poor performance of the English side. Some remarked Rooney was nothing but a big fat bully, some mentioned England should have been ousted in the group stage, some said the coach was all the way wrong, wrong formation, wrong player selection, wrong strategies. Clearly, they were all disappointed, seeing their EPL heroes humiliated by a much younger and energetic Germany side.

It is too bad that England had a goal by Lampard disallowed, as the video replays again and again shown that the ball had clearly crossed the line but bounced out. What I can’t understand is that such error is still can't be avoided in the biggest sport event in the world, and with the availability of all the modern technologies. Had the score lines levelled at 2-2 at the end of the first half, there shoulf be more exciting performances by both sides in the second half but clearly, the Germans were more solid in their defense and effective in counter attacks.

Perhaps England should get Jose Mourinho to be their coach to revive any chance of lifting the FIFA World Cup Trophy again.

Italy crashed out....

At first I thought England and Spain were suck, France worst and then the Champion Italy was simply horrible, just moments ago they were sent home packing by the Slovakian. A defending champion can’t even get into the round of 16. Perhaps Italians were cursed by France as they lost to Italy in the penalty shoot-out in 2006 World Cup after Zinedine Zidane was infamously sent-off after head-butting Marco Materrazi. But both France and Italy played very badly in this World Cup, what a shame, the champion and runner-up.

New Zealand whose players are with limited abilities can even finish the group stage with a better result as compared to both the former champions. The value of Cristiano Ronaldo alone is even more expensive than all the Kiwis players collectively. It goes to show that individually, no matter how talented they are, if they can’t work together as a team, there is no way they can go far. On the other hand, those with limited abilities but still can work wholeheartedly as a team, collectively can produce a miracle.

Come on, One Malaysia, we can learn something from this.

Who's responsible for Sime fiasco?

Prior to the merger, both Guthrie and Golden Hope were mainly involved in plantation businesses and when the commodity price went soaring, these two companies were making huge profits. SIME on the other hand was much more diversified than Guthrie and Golden Hope, involving in motor vehicle, oil and gas, energy and utilities and all other businesses. These businesses although big may not contribute good profit margin as compared to plantation business. But why the merger if three companies were running smoothly by itself? The rule of thumb, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it clearly doesn’t apply here.

When SIME reported the huge losses of RM 964 million suffered by its energy and utilities division, it makes the murky water clear as to why the merger was all about. RM 964 million losses due to cost overrun is a huge loss by any standard and it could even make a company bankrupt. Instead of SIME alone facing the music, some smart Alex proposed to drag in Guthrie and Golden Hope to dance together, in the way lessening the heavy losses incurred by SIME.

Despite of every quarterly town hall meeting where all the section heads take turn to brief the managers from all the operation units over the country, couple with Teh Tarik sessions every now and then, it seems stupid that none of the executives in SIME attending the town-hall sessions chaired by the CEO himself were unable to sense up any suspicions on cost overrun incurred by SIME. Or there are people keeping mum on the issue worrying of their own job security. But to be honest, I’m one of those people attending such meetings, wearing smartly listening to those highly paid fellas without intention of understanding, but still slightly better than a few other guys always snoring at the meeting hall.

Remember the rule of work. The first rule is the boss is always right. The second rule is; if the boss is wrong, refer to the first rule. This is how our society works like it or not. When your boss speaks, you listen and keep your mouth shut even though they may speak rubbish or tell lies. But when the boss is making mistakes rendering the company suffering huge losses, all the employees suffer. I keep my fingers crossed, for a whole year running like a dog covering business, then arguing with the bosses who have their minds pre-set to give you a so-so KPI rating and when it comes to the grand finale, hey what the heck, they tell you the company is suffering huge losses and you might not even get the smell of the bonus.

岁月神偷

数年前在云顶观看李宗盛演唱会，当老李沙哑的唱着《我是一只小小鸟》的时候，在我后座有位老兄也哽咽的跟着唱了起来，歌唱得五音不全但真情流露。我回头一眯，不得了，那仁兄唱得泪流满颊，仿佛《一只小小鸟》已触动了心中隐藏许久的伤痛。那是我和老婆看的第一场演唱会，完完全全是冲着李宗盛而来，期待着重温那许许多多曾经触动心弦的李氏经典歌曲。那一个晚上我想没有多少歌迷是失望的，至少在散场后我那澎湃的心境还是久久不能平息。

之后也看了许许多多的演唱会，可就没有那一场演唱会那么的感动了，其中也包括有李宗盛参与的纵贯线演唱会。昨晚看了《岁月神偷》，这一部反映了六十年代香港普通人家生活的电影，仿佛一部时光机，让我重回到七十年代的成长时光。那虽是一个物资贫乏的年代，没有今时今日般五花八门，但那年代的社会多了份安详和人情味，就好似戏里街坊邻里常常互相帮助，吃饭时家家户户都把桌子摆在外面，各家的小孩子在桌前跳窜和嬉闹，夹别人家的菜吃。

生活虽简朴，也逃不过命运的考验，就有如片中，儿子病了，父亲典当了结婚戒指让儿子输了血，母亲发现了，也只能泪往肚里吞。始终悲喜与共，就像吴君如所说，脚上的鞋，一步难，一步佳，是难是佳，日子还是一样要过。

在幻变的生命里，岁月，原是最大的小偷，在不知不觉中，偷走了青春、年华、事业、健康、生命……而你我能作的除了感叹，也只有回忆以往美好时光。

Will Malaysia go bankrupt because of subsidy?

Many months ago while we were having our routine town hall meeting, an employee raised up the question of should the company giving some forms of subsidy to assist its employees in view of the escalating cost of living. As expected, this guy was bombarded by our CEO, who was still the CEO cum President at that point in time but recently told to take leave of absence due to cost overrun issue. The CEO urged the employees to change the mentality of over depending on subsidy. To him, subsidy is nothing but a burden to the country.

When you drive a big luxury car costs several hundred thousand ringgits, would you worry about the petrol prices going up by 20 or 30 cents per liter? If you can afford to stay in a big bungalow worth millions of ringgits, would you worry about the prices of sugar or rice or whatever household necessities going up? Surely you won’t, as you are wealthy enough to live an extravagant life and the issues of cost increase by 20 or 30 cents is too petty to talk about. But what about the middle class or poor people? Would their life be affected if the government decided to remove the subsidies? Surely they will, the removal of subsidy will create a chain reaction which could be far beyond our apprehension.

I guess we have to realize that not many people in this country are rich enough to enjoy the luxurious life styles. Not that they are lazy but circumstances in life are not in their favor, if you are born an average person with average look and not so smart brain, can you blame your parents? You can’t. Neither can you blame your father for him not a rich fella like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. And despite all your hard work you only manage to earn a meager, to support your family from neck to neck because you are only an average person, what would you do, go and rob a bank so you will become rick quickly?

The issue of government debt should not be blamed solely on the subsidy. Are we saying that our government is so efficient that they can manage our resources so efficiently and no misuses or misjudgments or no corruptions. Mega projects cost billion and billion of ringgits benefiting only big businessmen and not the commoners. APs are given to some people benefiting crony but burdening common people. Corridors here and corridors there but we don’t seem to be benefiting anything. Don’t forget, the people in this country are not only getting subsidy, we are also giving subsidy to Proton notably. Because of proton, the foreign cars are ridiculously expensive here.

It is such an irony of democracy that the lawmakers always comprises of the minority rich people which are making the laws for the majority of poor people like you and me. These buggers are driving big cars, occupying luxurious offices in the metropolitan, wearing neat Armani, puffing expensive cigars and drawing the plans to cut subsidy which is meant to lower the cost of living for majority of the poor people.

Cabinet reshuffle

The recent cabinet reshuffle is primarily aimed to suit changes in MCA leadership after its party re-election which saw Chua Soi Lek toppled Ong Tee Kiat. Arising from that, Ong was removed from the ministerial portfolio and Chua was not included into the new cabinet line-up as expected for very obvious reason. It makes me wonder whether the cabinet is formed to serve the people or to distribute portfolios to the politicians. Are the minister portfolios being appointed base on merits or just to reward the politicians from the coalition?

It is sad to see Ong being removed. At least among the MCA politicians, he is regarded as one of the more capable and out-spoken. Chua is equally out-spoken but alas he can’t be a minister anymore since his resignation as health minister arising from the sex video scandal. And sadly, as Chua put it in a recent press conference, MCA only have 15 Members of Parliament so it has to first make some leaders who won in the party re-election to be a senator before they can fill the available portfolios in the Cabinet. How pitiful is that?

Chua know that he can’t be the minister or else he will be the laughing stock of MCA in the Parliament, knowing opposition leaders will capitalize his sex scandal to the fullest. So he makes his son a deputy minister instead. And it was fully supported by the Prime Minister as he felt that age is not an issue as he himself was made the youngest ever Menteri Besar of Pahang at the age of 29 although we all know why was he elected as the youngest Menteri Besar.

From the past two by-elections in Hulu Selangor and Sibu, the message from the Chinese community seemed obvious, and if MCA doesn’t shake up and continue with its seemingly never-ending infighting, they may not even able to maintain their 15 MPs in the next general election. Should that happen, its president, whoever he is, will find it even harder to find candidates to fill the cabinet portfolios.