Gummie’s Cafe Inc. ®

I bet many people have this same thought in mind.
“I want to get married at xx age. Then I want to have XX children. They go to school. Get good results. Go to university. Then they are getting married. Then I will have grandchildren.”

Is it a must-followed formula for human beings?

I just don’t understand. Ya, getting married and having children is like something everyone must gone through. Why must it be?

Just this morning, I heard from a friend whom is already about 40 plus years old. She told me she had a friend, who is only 50 years old passed away yesterday just suddenly. On that morning, while she was feeling not well, she told her husband she was going to bed again to rest. Her husband went out to send their children to school. After came back home, the wife passed away.

How fragile life is? How sad is the husband and children? I bet her children maybe just in school. I bet the husband is going to be sad from the day onwards.

It just stroked me by hearing this news. I think life is fragile. I just think we should do whatever we feel like to do when we are still alive. Who knows maybe the next day we will be gone forever? Maybe I’m negative but it’s true we never know how long we can still live. And if we are married having children, then we pass away, I bet they will be very sad.

I also don’t know what I’m talking about now.

There is no conclusion here.

It’s just part of life.

小时候，往往听见大人说，“你不要问这么多，等你大了，你就会明白。”

大了一点之后，他们就会说，“以后你就会知道，在一生里，不是你想要什么，就可以得到什么。”

原来，付出与得到永远不能成为正比。

我们的付出也许在别人的眼里，不能算是什么。

我们也许以为别人也在认同我们的付出时，其实到头来，只是我们的一厢情愿。

人，永远是自私的。人，往往都为自己而出发。当情况不能为自己带来正面的东西时，会不顾一切地，不理他人的感受而做出对别人的一切决定。

也许，当某些人在决定时给予他人伤心，难过，这些人往往都不会在乎的。

很多人说，我们要学会保护自己。

但在保护自己的时候，往往伤害了别人。

这是对的吗？

如果你的答案是保护自己最重要，我们的世界竟然是如此只为了自己。你并没有错，因为这个世界就是如此的自私。

很多时候，我们都会有一个通病。

“我觉得如果我这样做，所有的都能解决。”

就因为一个“我觉得”，身边的所承受的往往比你想象中还要痛苦。

“在乎”，往往对于不同的人有不同的感受。

当自私存在时，“在乎”只是一个笑话。

Imagine this…

6am       Get off from bed. Brush teeth and wash face.
6.15 am  Go out to jog or do some cycling
7.15 am  Come home to take a shower. Get breakfast
8.00 am  Get ready to go work. Take only two trains, reach office before 9am.

6pm         Get off from work. Take two trains.
7pm         Reach home. Take shower.
7.45 pm    Eat dinner.
After 8.30 pm    Enjoy DVD at home. YumCha with friends. Sing K. Watch movie in cinema.
10.30 pm   Go to bed.

I like this schedule for everyday. Do you?

In fact, we spend so much time on the roads everyday, sometimes it even spends us 2 hours to drive for a distance of 30k. We need to get out from our house at 7.30am to go to work, and reach home sometime even at 9pm. All our life has been contributing to traffic jam, money goes into car loan, salary goes to petrol and never ending inflation that makes everything seems to be so expensive, and of course no entertainment because you don’t even have much time for that. And also, it is a miracle if you can get out from office by 6pm everyday from Monday to Friday.

That says it all. Living in Malaysia is like you are working and working and working and working and working and…. for the rest of your life. And the money that you are making dumps into the loans; car loans, housing loan, so called "0% interest plan" (which is dumb because our lousy Ringgit value makes us not able to buy things in ONE payment), and etc. And ya, the housing loan makes you in debt for 30 years. So basically, your ENTIRE life is in debt, and so called "Deep Shit" if this is easier to be understand.

And because the public transportation is sucks, you need a damn car. Your car "drinks" petrol and also you need to have maintenance for your car. Do we have taxi? Yes, they are expensive and they will suck your money without operating the fees meter. And you never feel safe sitting in that red/white vehicle.

So I can assume, two third of your salary goes to debts repayment. And yes, the rest one third of balance, you need to spend to eat, drink, shit (toilet papers), and other things. You need to buy clothes because you are not allowed to be naked on the streets. You need to buy ties because your are required to have the dumb ass smart look for the office occupation. You need to spend money on glasses because without that, you cannot read or write. You need to have hair cut because hair grows everyday. You need to buy things like computer, otherwise you are basically not in 21st century. So you have to spend money to buy all these things with your one third salary balance. Now you are saying, "Wow… we are amazing… we can survive with the one third salary… Malaysians are so great because with limited money, we can still survive!!!"

What a pathetic saying!!!! You think we deserve this???

A whole bunch of idiots and cronies running the country for 50 years and make this country looks like a fool to others. They have no vision at all. One of our ex-leaders was talking about 2020 Vision where you don’t even have a good public transportation system. Your people is living so poorly because they live in debts in the entire life basically. You chase away foreign investors because you want to protect your own asses. We have to spend so much money on buying the poorly local made cars that makes you feel PROUD.

This country is basically FINISHED. Yes, I repeat FINITO!!!

If this existing government who has been elected for the past 50 years, and wins the next election, this will show how dumb our people is. And if they win again next time, this country is HOPELESS.

I want my lifestyle.
I don’t want to spend 2 hours to reach my office which I might only need 20 minutes.
I hope I can afford to buy the things I like.
I hope I’m debt free at the age of 35.
I want to have children where they can enjoy world class free education.
I want to retire with ease where I have no worries about myself, my children and my grandchildren.

Are these achievable in Malaysia?

Today Tenaga stock rose by about MYR1.00. Volume traded in excess of 35 million units.Yesterday Tenaga stock was suspended.

Put these points together.

1. If you know that an announcement would be made on Wednesday that TNB rates will be revised upwards you would surely buy Tenaga shares on Tuesday.
2. If you own an investment bank or have sufficient credit line with an Investment Bank you would have bought as much as you could knowing that the price will surely go up.
3. Since you have to pay within 3 days (T+3 rule), you would have planned to sell on Friday. ?So you could have bought 1Million Tenaga shares on Tuesday and sold it today for a cool MYR1Million profit without paying any money (perhaps some borrowing costs for 2-3 days).
4. Of course none of us are privy to the announcement of the fuel hike, but the family of the PM are privy to it.
5. Of course none of us have a large credit line with an Investment Bank but the family of the PM owns an investment bank.
6. Why the surprise announcement on 05 June when the PM has said that it would be in August ? Well you can only make a big and quick profit if you control the timings and surprise others.
7. For those in the know (the powers that be and their cronies) this has been one hugely profitable week buying and shorting the related shares.  The poor rakyat had to queue just to fill up their tanks and perhaps save between MYR20-MYR100.

Now read below….. Need those in know of the basic economics of crude, fuel etc to comment.

WHAT IS NEVER MENTIONED IN Mainstream Media like NST/TheStar/ Utusan/BH are these facts….

Malaysian PerCapita Income USD 5000 VS
Singaporean PerCapita Income USD 25000

Further The Star made a comparison of prices in Thailand , Singapore and Indonesia .
For Thailand it is quoted at RM3.90/liter, however are they aware that in Thailand new cars are cheaper than Malaysia by RM10,000? They pay only one life time for their driving license? No renewal fee after that? Also that goes for road tax as well? And do TheStar also aware that you can drive all the way from Hadtyai to Bangkok on a six lane highway without paying any Tolls ??!!

Whereas here in Malaysia you have to pay yearly renewal for road tax , driving license and TOLLS, TOLLS, TOLLS!!!

For Singapore how can you quote RM 5.20 ? Please quote in Singapore Dollars because they are earning in Sing Dollars. You might as well say Europeans are paying RM10/liter. RM5.20/liter = Sing $ 2.20/liter, still cheaper than Malaysia in view of fact that Singapore is not a crude oil exporter. Are you saying that you fill up petrol in Singapore by paying Ringgit?

In economy, dollar to dollar must be compared as apple to apple. Not comparing like durian in M’sia is much cheaper than durian in Japan !! Of course-lah, Japan is not durian producer!!! Comparing Malaysian durian with Thailand durian make more sense!!

For Indonesia we might say is cheaper there at RM2.07/liter but compare that to their level of income!

Now, let us compare the price with OIL PRODUCING countries:

UAE  RM1.19/litre
Eygpt RM1.03/litre
Bahrain RM0.87/litre
Qatar   RM0.68/litre
Kuwait RM0.67/litre
Saudi Arabia   RM0.38/litre
IranRM0.35/litre
Nigeria RM0.32/litre
Turkmenistan RM0.25/litre
Venezuela RM0.16/litre
MALAYSIA RM2.70/litre

RM 2.70!!! Individual perspective:

As of last month a Toyota Vios would ’cause a damage’ of about RM 89,000.
In the international market, a Toyota Vios is about USD 19,000
USD 19,000 = RM 62,700 (using the indicative rates of USD 1 = RM 3.30)
That makes Malaysian Vios owners pay an extra RM 26,300.

This RM 26,300 should be cost of operations, profit and tax because the transportation costs have been factored in to the USD 19,000.

RM 26,300/ RM625 petrol rebate per year translates to a Vios being used for 42.08 years.

I do understand that the RM 625 is a rebate given by the government, but it also means that one has to use the Vios for 42.08 years just to make back the amount paid in taxes for the usage of a foreign car. Would anyone use any kind of car for that long?

Now with these numbers in front of us, does the subsidy sound like a subsidy or does it sound like a penalty? This just seems to be a heavy increment in our daily cost of living as we are not only charged with high car taxes but also with a drastic increase in fuel price.

With all the numbers listed out, I urge all Malaysians to join me in analyzing the situation further.

Car taxation is government profit, fuel sales is Petronas’ (GLC) profit which also translates into government profit. The government may ridicule us Malaysians by saying look at the world market and fuel price world wide. Please, we are Malaysians, we fought of the British, had a international port in the early centuries (Malacca), home to a racially mixed nation and WE ARE NOT STUPID!!!

We know the international rates are above the USD 130/barrel. We understand the fact that the fuel prices are increasing worldwide and we also know that major scientist are still contradicting on why this phenomenon is happening. Some blame Bush and his plunders around the world and some blame climate change and there are others which say petroleum ‘wells’ are getting scarce.

Again we go back to numbers to be more straight fwd

1 barrel = 159 liters x RM2.70/liter = RM 429 or USD 134

On 1 hand, we are paying the full cost of 1 barrel of crude oil with RM2.70 per liter but on the other hand the crude oil only produces 46% of fuel.

Msia sells crude oil per barrel at USD130 buys back Fuel per barrel at USD134. And not forgetting, every barrel of fuel is produced with 2 barrels of crude oil.

1 barrel crude oil = produce 46% fuel (or half of crude oil), therefore
2 barrel crude oil = approximately 1 barrel fuel
In other words, each time we sell 2 barrels of crude oil, equivalently we will buy back 1 barrel of fuel.

Financially,
Malaysiasell 2 barrel crude oil @ USD 130/barrel = USD 260 = RM 858
then, Malaysia will buy back fuel @ USD 134/barrel = RM 442/barrel
Thus, Malaysia earn net extra USD 126 = RM 416 for each 2 barrel of crude sold/exported vs imported 1 barrel of fuel !!!
(USD 260-134 = USD 126 = RM416)

So where this extra USD 126/barrel income is channeled to by Malaysian Govt???????? ?

Another analysis:

1 barrel crude oil = 159 liters.
46-47% of a barrel of crude oil = fuel that we use in our vehicles.
46% of 159 = 73.14 liters.
@ RM 2.70/liter x 73.14 liter = RM197.48 of fuel per barrel of crude oil. This is only 46% of the barrel, mind you. Using RM 3.30 = USD 1, we get that a barrel of crude oil produces USD 59.84 worth of petrol fuel (46% of 1barrel).
USD 59.84 of USD 130/barrel turns out to be 46% of a barrel as well.

Another 54% = bitumen, kerosene, and natural gases and so many more.
And this makes a balance of USD 70.16 that has not been accounted for.

So this is where I got curious. Where is the subsidy if we are paying 46% of the price of a barrel of crude oil when the production of petrol/barrel of crude oil is still only 46%?

In actual fact, we still pay for this as they are charged in the forms of fuel surcharge by airlines and road taxes for the building of road (because they use the tar/bitumen) and many more excuse charging us but let us just leave all that out of our calculations.

As far as I know, only the politicians who live in Putrajaya and come for their Parliament meetings in Kuala Lumpur (approximately 60+ km) are the ones to gain as they claim their fuel and toll charges from the money of the RAKYAT’s TAX.

It is so disappointing to see this happen time and time again to the Malaysian public, where they are deceived by the propaganda held by the politicians and the controls they have over the press.

Which stupid idiot economist equates rebates for rich or poor with the cc of the vehicles? An average office clerk may own a second hand 1300cc proton Iswara costing $7,000 (rebate = $625) while the Datuk’s children can own a fleet of 10 new cars of BMW, Audi and Volvo all less than 2000cc costing $2 millions and get a total rebate of $625 x 10 = $6,250! Wow what kind of economists we are keeping in Malaysia …wonder which phD certificate that they bought from…

Misleading concept of Subsidy:

The word "subsidy" has been brandished by the BN government as if it has so generously helped the rakyat and in doing so incurred losses. This simple example will help to explain the fallacy:

Example:
Ahmad is a fisherman. He sells a fish to you at $10 which is below the market value of $15. Let’s assume that he caught the fish from the abundance of the sea at little or no cost. Ahmad claims that since the market value of the fish is $15 and he sold you the fish for $10, he had subsidised you $5 and therefore made a loss of $5.

Question : Did Ahmad actually make a profit of $10 or loss of $5 which he claimed is the subsidy?

Answer:
Ahmad makes a profit of $10 which is the difference of the selling price ($10) minus the cost price ($0 since the fish was caught from the abundance of the sea). There is no subsidy as claimed by Ahmad.

The BN government claims that it is a subsidy because the oil is kept and treated as somebody else’s property (you know who). By right, the oil belongs to all citizens of the country and the government is a trustee for the citizens. So as in the above simple example, the BN government cannot claim that it has subsidised the citizen!

Our BN government is sucks BIG TIME!!!! They are sucking our money like Vampires!!! and the funny part is PEOPLE VOTED FOR THIS!!!

Just compare the patrol prices of these countries below and tell me whether RM2.70/litre is justified.  

To understand what bigger problem lies ahead please read the following article:

The 56 billion ringgit question

I am referring to the article in Malaysiakini: Pump price at ‘market levels by August’.

First of all lets get some basic facts right.

Firstly Malaysia is a net exporter of crude oil. So the government did NOT subsidize our petrol. The RM56 billion ’subsidy’ per year is the extra amount that the government would have earned if it had exported all of our oil production. There is no ’spiralling bill’, the government did not lose any money because it is our own oil and we are not paying anybody for our oil supply.

Secondly - when the government scrapes the so called ’subsidy’ that it did not pay any money for in the first place - it is forcing the rakyat to buy back our own resources at a much higher price. Each and every one of us will suffer because of this, especially the poor.

The hike in oil prices has not caused hardships to our government. On the contrary it has already earned record profits for Petronas. And now our government is going to squeeze even more profits by squeezing the rakyat. Put it more blatantly, the Barisan Nasional government will get filthy rich form the blood money of the rakyat.

Now the 56 billion ringgit question. What will the Barisan Nasional government do with the RM56 billion windfall per year? We already suffered a price hike on our petrol almost a year back, and have we seen any accounting on what has been done with the extra money that the government collected? I remembered that there were some talks of using the money to improve our public transport system. But so far I have only heard about the ailing KTM, failing bus companies and government cutting subsidry to Rapid KL.

Don’t you feel suspicious of what is going to happen to this hefty sum of money? RM56 billion is a mind boggling sum of money, it is almost enough to build 5 Putrajaya according to the official figure. The last thing I want to see is for the money to end up in political machines and lining the pockets of politicians and their cronies. I hope our Pakatan Rakyat representatives will see to it that every sen of it is accounted for.

I am not against raising the price of petrol. It is a matter of urgency that we cut our dependency on fossil fuels now as it is the main source of green house gas that is causing havoc in our weather patterns and ecosystems.

Even if global warming and destruction of our ecosystems is not your concern, you still have to consider the fact that crude oil price is not going to come down. Some analysts even projected that crude oil may reach USD 200 per barrel by 2012. Have you asked what is going to happen to our economy when our oil reserves run out in 5 years time?

Don’t you find it amazing that nobody is talking about these pressing issues now? This whole issue about oil subsidy is completely beside the point. The way it was phrased as if it was costing our government a hefty sum of money was completely misleading. The more pertinent point is really how we can best make use of the last of our rapidly depleting resource to safeguard our future. I have not seen any sensible policies regarding this from the Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat camps as yet. It is already sparking riots in many parts of the world, including our close neighbors, and yet nobody here seems to think that we have a problem.

I don’t think we can look towards our government for answers. Our so called ‘leaders’ are engrossed in fighting and bringing each other down, unscrupulously stirring up racial sentiments for their survivals. They never have the track records of putting the interest of the rakyat in the forefront anyway. The whole political scene is simply disgusting and depressing beyond words.

This is the time that ordinary people like you and I have to come forward and take charge. Count ourselves lucky that we have a 5 years grace period to get ready for the end of cheap oil. But we need to make sure that every ounce of our resources is used wisely for the survival of our future generations. That can only happen if we, the rakyat, unite as one single voice to demand for the right things to be done.

There are a lot we can do together, and we are not isolated either. There are already over a million environmental and social justice organizations around the world that we can work with right now. The fisrt step is to realize that we have a problem in hand. This is not just any ordinary problem. What we are facing is a problem of epic proportion that is going to require the cooperation of the whole world.

The sky is blue. The grass is green.
There are a few goats and cows around.

From here I can see a mountain with snowy top.
Looking at my far left, there is a river.
Looking at my far right, there is a small little house.

A vacation.
A place for me to look forward to something.
A time where work is no longer a requirement.
A chance for me to see how big the world is.

Is there such a day?

To be honest with you, I do not know what to write now. But then why am I writing? Maybe it’s just that it has been quite some time I’ve put up something here.

I’ve come across a junction in my life recently. After spending about 2 years in an education company, finally I realised that it’s time for me to move on to something else. There are many happy memories here knowing many good colleagues whom have now becoming my closest friends in my life. And I know this friendship will last until very very long time even after I left this education company. You know what, for the past 2 years, I felt like I was being cheated and brainwashed that how this brand is good and bring the best to Malaysian children. I look back and have to admit that the learning method is by far the best I’ve known BUT the management here is totally a joke. I joined in May 2005. From May 2005 until January 2006, I gave my best to the company including my priceless creativity which comes from my advertising background. I did far beyond my main job function because I believe if you want to be success, you have to give all you have. But the return in February 2006 for my first increment, it was a heartbreaking one. Of course, expectation and reality normally don’t match with each other. But when the reality is too far away from the expectation, there must be something not right. I had to admit from February onward until around May or June, I was giving my minimum contribution. I still carried out my basic job functions. Suddenly in June, the thought came to me that I shouldn’t be putting myself in this kind of situation. So I worked hard again making another run and hope that I will be appreciated. I was rewarded as the KAO Conference emcee job as it was by far the most audiences in my emceeing history. And so even until year end, althought I know there are many many problems in this company, I still stayed on. That time rumors were spreading that they were going to select Sub-Team Leader for my department. I was hoping and really hoping hard that the company will eventually consider my working experience and skills that finally I will have the chance to bring a fresh idea into the management.

In the end until today, they did not promote anyone in my team. Well, I have to admit there are other capable members in my team as well. Also, one of my team members is a very very ambitious person and I can see this team member is looking to go up to the position as well. And so, I gave up the idea because by looking at other Sub-Team Leaders in my company, they are not given any power to make decisions. So what is the purpose to promote them? I see this as a condition that "the old management style prohibits younger people to change the spoilt culture".

Then another increment this March. Another disappointment. This time around, surprisingly, I wasn’t angry or mad, instead I was just disappointed or in another word, no feelings at all looking at the figure. This so called worldwide company, with more than 4 million students around the world, with billions of profit every year, is paying peanuts to staff who are the future of the company. Please forgive me if I have to use the following sentence to describe the company. It’s a "Fucking Stingy Company having a bunch of Idiots protecting their asses at the Top Management taking high salary but do nothing and expect the others to work like Buffalos but pay them Peanuts". And yeah, maybe this is the Organisational Behavior or Principle of this company. Remember when our grandparents were tortured by the people from the Sun country? Now they are trying to take over the world from another aspect by hiring us, the cheap labors.

So what now? This way, that way or my way?

A conversation was carried out today with my superior, my colleague and myself. My superior said, "The support that we (the franchisor) give to the franchisees are not enough. We have to give more support them. If I list down the supports to be given to franchisees, I think we need to work harder." I was almost…. ALMOST going to say, "FUCK YOU. The company is paying me peanuts but expects me to give unlimited support? Either you are insane or you are so loyal to this company!!!!"

The blog is long enough. It’s time to stop here.

Can someone help me get out of this cage? I know only myself knows what is going on. I need to move on… ASAP….

Dear friends,

I would like to let you know that I have changed my Chinese name to

It is pronounced in Han Yu Pin Yin as "Li3 Zhen3 Hong2".

Thanks. :)

From F&B to Retail to HR to Education. Next station….?

Where is the final destination?

Where should I be landing at?

How does it look like 5 years from now?

Where would I be in 2014?

Cracking my heard. Thinking about it everyday.

My mind is out of universe.

I will still try to keep this in mind while thinking.

Face the past without regret. Handle the present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear.

Don’t be surprise if I end up selling books. J