September 2011-14

Year goes by very fast, it is already September. I get kinda sentimental during this time of the year because it marks something in my life. I have been working in Singapore for 3 years. 1st of September 2011 to be exact, the day I started working in Singapore.

I take this time to really take a step back and reanalyze what I have done with my life and my career. I looked back to who I was in the year 2011, a recent graduate that just entered the working professional world. I was still an engineer, hence the web address still have "engineer" in it and I am planning to leave it as it is as momento of who I was. really cheesy huh?

I have to say my salary with my first job was actually decent. Not fantastic but I wouldn't say it was bad either. My second job also gave me decent salary, slight improvement from my first but it gave me the conclusion that I don't belong in the engineering world and I made the decision to move to finance. I wanted more and think that I deserve more in life. That's how it is with us millenial generation right? always think that we deserve the world and the world owes us everything. Anyway the finance world has been really great so far and I would say it was one of the best move that I have ever taken in my life. I love the job, I love what I am doing and I think I am greatly paid for doing less job than I was in my engineering career. So I guess I can say life is quite good, for now.

I took a look at my savings and investment. I have to say I kinda expected more, especially considering that some of my friends seems to be doing really well, buying houses and properties etc, while I still have none. I have some shares in stocks but they are not that many. I probably talk or discuss like I have a bunch of them but actually they are just in small amount. I didn't take it in a bad way because I do spend a lot especially in cigars, decent working attires, and foods. I like to splurge a little bit once in a while, pamper myself a little bit but my spending is definitely still in a healthy side where I can still save some of my paycheck every month. 

With the mindset of saving and building wealth, sometimes we forget that we also have to live in the moment, and there is nothing wrong with pampering yourself as long as you plan it healthily. I am a true believer in having a good set of attire to go to work with. Because I am spending most of my life wearing them so I might as well get them as comfortable as I can, keeping my mood happy at work, and in a way help me excel at my job. Also considering I just started settling down alone in Singapore and working, I did spend a lot to buy the essential stuffs. That being said, I do hope that I can save a lot more money in the future.

I have to say that I really love my current job and it gave me new perspective in life. When I love what I am doing, I stopped comparing myself with others. Previously I always get all stressed up looking at others success thinking that I should fetch a better salary and a better life than them. Especially when I look at guys that didn't do as good as me in school, but living life better than me. I am at peace with that, and that was definitely not a healthy way to live life. I have my own opportunities coming at me, with my own personalities engineering the way I want to live my life. That was why when I wrote some of my friend have started settling down with buying properties I am not too bothered about it because I do have a different strategy in investing. 

A few months back I have just been granted a permanent resident status in Singapore. That says a lot about my commitment to set down my root here. I think at this point I probably looking at staying here for at least another 10 years or so. Anyway I have spent a lot of money settling down, I want to make sure that those investments see their return of investment before I decided to go back to Malaysia. Anyway at this point, there is no job in Malaysia that can offer me the same salary I am withdrawing. So I'd probably have to lose 50% or more of my paycheck if I wanna go back. I would rather stay.

At the end of my first year here, I was really at a crossroad of going back to Malaysia or stay and work here. I had some turbulence in my life, where everything was going wrong in my life. I am not going into details but hating my job was definitely part of it. I am glad that I decided to stay. My second job kinda saved me from that decision because even though it was not the most ideal job I had in mind, it was a good buffer before I landed another job.

By an asian guy standard, I have been a way from home(my parents' home) for quite a while. I started at age 16 where I went to a boarding school 400km away from home for a good 2 years. Then I spent 4 years in Japan and now 3 years and counting in Singapore. This life adventure of mine is something that I can write down with pride in my resume, my sales pitch I would say. Gratefully I still manage to go back to visit my parents on a monthly basis. People call me a "Mama's boy" for that, but some of them haven't even gone out of the state they were born in and probably still living with their parents. I am a mama's boy though, it is just that I don't get it when such people say that in my face. 

Anyway as an asian, grew up in a traditional asian culture, I do treasure the family value deeply. In fact I wished I could go back and visit them more often especially everytime I visit them, they have a lot more white hair than I remembered. They are not getting any younger and my time with them is getting shorter by the day. But I guess they have already provided me with a cradle, but one cannot stay in a cradle forever. I too have to venture out the world and find a life of my own. I have to, we have to.

With that written down, if you have always wondered or wanted to ask me about how life is in Singapore, I hope you have your answer.

Malaysia Airlines share post Khazanah's offer : Better or worse outcomes for investors

Okay this one will just be a simple post about a conversion I had with few friends of mine about some hypothetical series of events where they maybe better or worse for the investors.

As I have written in my last post, Khazanah has initiated a proposal of buying out the remaining 30% of MAS stock to make the revamping process easier. So they offered 27ct for every single unit of MAS share currently being publicly traded. Now the share price hovers around 25.5ct to 26ct, where some people are still buying at 26ct, making a very slight margin of 1ct(3.8% not too bad actually) once Khazanah bought over the share.

But that's the thing. The thing have not been finalised yet. A a matter of fact,no official letter or anything has been sent out to the shareholders. So, until an offer letter has been sent out, there are still possibilities that this could go bad or go for the better. Bear in mind that this process may take months.

How it may go bad? Obviously, govt make a revision of the offer price, Citizens not happy with govt keep bailing MA out to help certain individuals, Tun Mahathir keeps bashing the current govt for bailing out MAS and many other reasons. All these could result into reduced offer priced or the bail out not to happen at all. In the case offer price being revised to less than 27ct, the guys that bought at 26ct are pretty much screwed, and if there is no bail out, all of the shareholders are screwed. However the likelihood for this to happen is very low since Khazanah(govt) did announce their decision and that would be a very blatant way of manipulating your people. They always screw their people from every angle they could, but this would be too subtle.

How it may go better? most of the shareholders, or there are a few big-time investors in that 30% rejected Khazanah's 27ct proposal. In this case Khazanah would have to revise and increase their offer.The likelyhood of this to happen is pretty darn low too because you know why right? MAS is pretty deep in the shit and 27ct is already a pretty good deal for most investors. 

Even though it is almost sure that Khazanah would proceed with the 27ct buy out, anything may happen and may screw it all up.Also, since the takeover process gonna take months with no estimated date at this moment, would you rather wait or sell them at slightly lower price (25.5-26ct) and vet the money to something else,with chances to get more return within the same period. The answer would depend your personality and what kind of investor you are

The Malaysia Airlines Saga : In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity - Sun Tzu

I think every single one of us is already very familiar with the problems faced by this company. The company has been in the red for so many years, and recently hit by 2 high profile aircraft disasters which will most definitely get Malaysia name into a few National Geographic episodes or series. Additionally for Malaysians we already know how terrible the state of this company with every single politician seems to have a piece of their pie in the company and has been sucking Khazanah fund since forever. So this company is definitely what should be classified as very high risk.

6months ago, MAS stocks was traded at 315ct and MH370 dissappearance really hit the market hard where the stock went to its all-time low to 155ct. I don't know why I didn't buy it at that time, but probably because it was too shitty, and with all the news and all I just got distracted. It was only when it reach 20ct I realised that "This is pretty damn low for a national carrier isn't it??" So I went in when it was 20ct.

Few reasons why I decided to go into MAS and why I think it has a potential to give big return:

1. All my other portfolios are what I consider medium risk. I wanted to diversify where I want a small portion of my portfolio vested in a "chance to strike gold" kind of stuff.

2. This company has history being saved by the govt, not once but twice. No reason why there can't be the third time.

3. People will argue bailing out MAS for the third time will be too much. But let's look back at why the first and second govt bail-out happened? As I mentioned above, so many politicians have their personal interest in churning fund out of this company. They will want that to continue

4. I was expecting 3 scenarios that will be in my favor. First is that Khazanah will inject extra fund, the second is like what is happening where Khazanah buy out the remaining 30% of the publicly traded share and make it 100% khazanah, privatizing it (It is actually nationalised since Khazanah is govt owned firm). The third scenario will be a third party investor came in and became a major shareholder. The third one is highly unlikely because MAS is a national flag carrier, so the govt wouldn't want a third party investor as the major shareholder. Likewise, a third party investor does not wanna be a major shareholder for a national carrier because they will be tied with  a lot of political and nationalism bullshit. That is not good for business.

So I bought some at 20ct, and the price went up and down a few time, just like a normal stock. I was just waiting for "good news" from the govt to come in and saves the day. Although they were few bad days where the performance was too bad that I had to tell myself to stop looking to my Bloomberg apps price update every couple minutes. Freaking technology that gives you price update every second. Then MH17 happened.....

It was not an easy experience holding the stock when such crisis happened. The night when MH17 news came out all over my FB wall, while other people were saddened, worried and sad about the victims, I was up all night running analysis and thinking about what may happen with MAS stocks and its future post MH17 crisis, and decided to keep holding them. Like I wrote above, even though I went in with the mentality to write-off the money, embracing the fact that I could never get my money back, money is still money and nobody likes losing money. The only time you are at peace with writing off money is when you make a donation. Even then, you would still expect some reward in the afterlife. Some friends know that I bought MAS share, and they texted me and told me to drop and let go while I can, simply short of telling me that I am an idiot to keep holding it. That surely didn't help. 

But I kept holding my share for a few reasons ;

1. MH17 was different from MH370. It wasn't a disappearance but the plane was shot down. You may argue as want but the bottomline is that in that case, MAS was a victim and Malaysians moved from anger to sympathy towards MAS. This would make it easier for the govt to justify bailing MAS out.

2. MAS is a national carrier, to a certain extend carry national pride. No Prime Minister want to leave MAS gone bankrupt when one of its carrier got shot down unjustly. Leaving it bankrupt would also mean that Malaysians are accepting the fact that MAS is incompetent and deserved to be left unsaved. I wouldn't say it was the right way to use people's money but politically the right thing to do.

3. But most of all even most Malaysians don't want the airlines to go down where a rebel group(or Ukrainian whatever) was the one to put the last nail to the coffin. It is just not right.

4. I went in buying a high-risk investment, this is the exact thing that I should expect. I have to stick to my gameplan. If I got spooked with such news, I am being emotional and pretty much beat the purpose of the whole thing.

So I held my share and I gotta say I am lucky that things worked out perfectly as I wanted it to be. A reminder to myself and my friends that it could have easily gone the other way around. This was basically my first high risk investment, I have learned a lot from it and in many way marks a big milestones in my investing journey.

Few advises for myself and friends for investing in high-risk stock; 

1. Keep your emotion in check.

2. Stop looking at the price update every few seconds. The fluctuation may also goes proportionate to your blood pressure. Not good for your health. Doesn't help with my receding hairline problem either.

3. Only tell about your investment to a very close circle friends or friends that actually know and analyze the market properly. I am not saying you shouldn't listen to other people's opinion. I do have few friends who actually analyze data and information differently from I do. They could easily reasoned out how everything I mentioned above could go the way around, basically telling you the negative implications of the events. You NEED to listen to those people to keep your check and balance. What you don't want is a cocky guy telling how idiot you are by presenting a fact word by word from whatever he reads in the internet or hears from his cousins. Those people will just disrupt your emotions. Not good.

4. As a Malaysian, take advantage of the fact that you know the political background, and how it will affect the market. Many of my foreigner friends think it is a bad idea to invest in MAS because they were only looking at the cashflow, business performance and company's fundamental. They don't know and can't possibly understand the political connection and the history between MAS, the govt and the people. Capitalize that.

Well I guess that was all I got to write. Though I do feel that I have some more to say, but the idea just doesn't come up when I am writing them down. It's always easier to speak them up rather than writing them down. Probably it is tied to my mediocre writing skill. But I guess if you want more details about it you gotta buy me a coffee or lunch so that we can have a longer conversation about it. I always find it easier to discuss about stuff when I am full, and with a nice cigar in my hand. Cheers.

Case Study : Negative interest rate.

Last week the Chairman of ECB, Mr Draghi has announced a negative interest rate(-0.1% annum to be exact) for banks that hold EUR account with them. This is definitely one of the weirdest policies that has been implemented in the banking world. Imagine you hold and account with a bank and say they give you like a shitty interest rate a year, 1.50% annum. Shitty rate, yeah but at the end of the year you will get 1.50% of your  savings right? With negative interest rate, you are the one that have to pay money to the bank for the privilege of saving money with them. In this case, the banks that hold account with ECB will have to pay 0.1% (annum rate) for overnight. So you don't to worry much about this because this is only between ECB and the banks that have account with them, and most importantly because I am sure many of you don't have a EUR account. But that doesn't mean you don't have to know about it. Knowledge is power and the same thing could have happened to Malaysia one day. you'll never know.

Some of you maybe be a bit unclear about what ECB is and what their function is. Well ECB is the federal reserve, the central bank of EUR currency. Similar to BNM(Bank Negara Malaysia), to process every single settlement in RM (EUR for ECB). To make explanation easy, refer the pic below

Imagine situation where I have to transfer RM100 to your account but I hold an account with a different bank from you. What happens when I told my bank (Bank C) to remit RM100 to your account in Bank M is that Bank C will tell BNM to debit RM100 to their account and credit RM100 to Bank M account. At the same time Bank C will tell Bank M that the RM100 is for you. And only then, you will see RM100 in your account. This settlement or remittance can only happen if : 
1. Both banks hold RM account with BNM 
2. Let's say one of them, Bank C doesn't have RM account with BNM, they must hold an RM account with another Bank that have RM account with BNM. Basically it is just another level of message where that other bank will transfer their money to Bank M.

Although that pic above is actually Settlement 101, I myself never knew about it till I joined banking. The reason I explained above is so that you can have a better picture of the ramification of this negative interest rate. If BNM(substitute of ECB) were to implement negative interest rate, that would means, every single day Bank C and Bank M will have to pay BNM if they cannot zerorize (flatten or whatever mumbo jumbo words those accountants use) their account. But worry not, Bank C or Bank M will not implement the negative interest rate on you or me because we already have gajillion reasons not to park money in a bank, negative interest rate is pretty much a deal breaker. currently most banks in Europe are offering 0% or near zero interest rate on the saving account. Damn I guess zero is still better than negative. 

So the message that ECB really wanna tell to the banks that hold EUR account with them through this new policy is, "I want you to get all the EUR you have out there, to the corporations, to the people, make them spend with it and generate economy." Pretty loud and clear. Of course with this negative rates, the lending rates also went down, to encourage people to borrow money from the bank. Pretty fancy move from the ECB, the first time in the history of modern banking to introduce a negative interest rate. US Federal reserve brought down the rate"near-zero" but never really went all the way to the negative zone.

It is kinda the recent 'in' thing with the Central Banks all over the world where they keep trying new fancy policy. The day Draghi announced about this new policy of his, few big media that I read mentioned that Draghi still have this one super power hidden weapon to beat deflation. The most potent weapon of all that he still keeps under his sleeve. Quantitative Easing. Fancy name right? I notice financial world likes to use fancy name for a stupidly easy stuff. I think it is one of a trick to sound more intelligent and make people easily amazed using fancy words. Quantitative Easing basically is printing money. See?? I wouldn't sound too intelligent if I simply say printing money. See?? I wouldn't sound too intelligent if I simply say printing money. Anyway, few years ago when Ben Bernanke of the US Federal Reserve announced QE, He didn't have many fans, and now medias describing QE as a "potent weapon". 

Though undeniably QE did help in many ways generating the US economy (not so much in Japan because corporations there are stingy as a retired old man). It's just that the World is super worry on how this policy is gonna fuck us up in the ass one day. We don't know how it's gonna fuck us up, we don't know when and how bad it will be, but knowing how economy works, it will fuck us up one day.

Warisan Merdeka Tower - The downfall of Malaysia economy. Or maybe the whole Asia?

I think a couple months ago I shared in my Facebook an article prepared by Barclay's analyst about skyscraper index. And few days ago I was reading about Malaysia government about their mega project Menara Warisan Merdeka Tower which is estimated to finish by 2018. Let's just be very clear that I would steer this entry away from political. There will be no government bashing, but writing based on my observations what are the possible consequences it may bring to our economy.

This index was initially introduced by a property analyst name Andrew Lawrence. Basically what this index says is that, around the completion time (+/- 1year) of a skyscraper, or a mega building project, there will be an economy downturn. the logic is actually very simple, and quite acceptable to a simple minded me at least. I'm sure that even if you guys don't know jack about economy, you still would know that economy have its cycle right? There will be good time, and bad time. Basically, what happens in the skyscraper index is that, the commencement or the decision to start building a mega building project is when the economy is at its peak. 

It makes sense. When the economy is at peak, that would be the time people start thinking, "Hey, let's start spending all the money we don't have and on top of that we borrow all the money the banks don't have. Anyway the lending rate is almost 0% annum right?????". The other would reply, "Hell yeah let's do that. Show our neighbours our small dick syndrome by building a massive building that looks like a penis" That's how easy a decision to build a mega multi-billion dollar building is. As mentioned above that economy usually is a cyclical thing, by the time the building finished, it would be just the sweet spot time for the economy to make a crash landing.

That is just the nature of market. When the market is bullish*, everyone is in this euphoric state like they in some mythical drugs. If someone came to them and tried to sell a slummy apartment somewhere not so close to Kuala Lumpur city with developer notoriously known for being terrible at property maintenance for RM500,000.00, they would still say, "Man, the price is quite expensive, but who cares right???? in 1 month it is going to like RM2million. Haha stupid other people who told me not to buy". But when the economy is bearish*, someone could tried to sell you a nice bungalow at RM10,000.00 and you'd still "Hmmmmmm quite a cheap price, but I don't think I am gonna buy this when by next week the value is just gonna be half of this. furthermore I now cannot make bank loan anymore because they are charging at 20% annum now".

(Bullish and Bearish is the words financialists use to describe uptrend and downtrend. Bullish is for uptrend and Bearish is for downtrend. No idea why bull and bear but some suggest it is due to the way they charge. A bull will charge with its head going upward whereas bear will charge down and tear you apart.)

Anyway, Malaysia had quite a good economy in recent years. I would not say a good economy with strong foundation but still, the citizens have been spending a lot of money they don't have, supporting the nation's economy leveraging their own household debt amount. So in 2010, the decision to build this mega project was announced and estimated to consume RM5Bn. Like I explained, the bullish market made it so easy to justify this RM5Bn investment. I am not saying it will not be a good investment at all, but it probably has to survive on a rough bearish economy period, which is tough and the outcome really depend on how resilient Malaysians and their government.

The skyscraper index report by Barclay gave multiple examples with most of the buildings being in the US because we know that generally if the US themselves is in recession, the whole will get it or at least feels a piece of it. They were few building names that I could remember, Empire state building, World Trade Center tower, Chrysler Building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, Taipei 101, and one that hit home, Our nation pride The Petronas Twin Towers. The completion of the Twin Towers was the signal for Asian Economy Crisis 1998. Malaysia and most Asian countries were saved and skipped the 2008 crisis for reasons I am not writing in this entry. And then comes this new project by Malaysia, the Warisan Merdeka Tower, estimated to be finished by 2018. Ever heard of the 10 years cycle for economy? 1998, 2008, 2018? Personally I am not really a fan of that 10year cycle theory. I believe that the period may vary, and don't have to be 10 years. But seems to be going that way.

And when that happens again, will Our leader be coming up with some weird conspiracy theory about how Jews and their underground groups were the one responsible killing our economy again? I hope when that time comes, we would have a ballsy leader that will accept what he had done wrong. lol yeah I am being a bit dreamy.

Singapore green Corridor run (trail track) - breaking the 10km barrier

Last Week I did  10km run. the Singapore Green Corridor Run. The run just started last year I think, so this is only the second time it is being held in Singapore. I feel like writing about this because that was the first ever running event that I ever entered. I do run every once in  a while, but I never really push myself all the way to 10km. I probably do like 30mins running session which probably like 3-4km. And this is a trail track, unlike the usual paved road or on the threadmill that we do.

So anyway, just wanna share some experience of running in this event. The event started fairly early at 9:20am. Anything that starts before 11am on a Sunday is early for me. So I had to wake up like 730am that day. When I was about to go out of my place, the rain suddenly pouring down. Like really pouring down, like this is the last rain and there will be no more rain after this. The first thought that I had was "Quite a shitty day to run trail". Trail running is already wet, stinky and shitty without the rain, so the rain would just multiply that by 10 times.

Against my better judgement and the excuses I created in my mind (because I really didn't feel like running 10km 920am on Sunday morning when the other option is sleeping. Very tempting), I still went to the event starting point which is the old Tanjong Pagar KTM station. I convinced myself that by the time the race going to start, the rain would stop, and it did stop when I started.

So the organiser have an arrangement where they will keep my stuff and I can collect them at the finishing point. Kinda neat, I have always wondered how do the runners keep their personal belongings, handphones or money during the race. The race started at 920am and even though the rain has stopped, the evidence of it still lingered around. The trail was basically a trail of mud and puddles. Below is a picture of proof

In the first kilometer I have already felt the difference in running trail, which I never get during running on a paved road. There was just this awkward feeling about running on soft and uneven surface, where it was kinda hard for me to anticipate on how to embrace my foot with the impact when it hits the ground. I know I have heard many people told me that running trail is different than paved road bla bla bla but you would never really get how different it is until you run one. On top of that, the trail was practically an inclining track all the way from the 5th kilometer. My knee took it quite hard from my lack of experience in running on uneven surface and inclining track practically just killed me. I was fading quite fast after the fifth kilometer. I also have to remind you that I have never been a physically fit nor an athletic person. Different people might just shrug off these things and say that I am just making it bigger than it actually is.

Oh yeah, did I tell you that only after a couple of kilometers it started to rain cats and dogs again? Yeap. Already in the race and too late to stop, although the temptation to stop was always there because there were a few exits set up by the organizers for those who just had enough with that thing. I actually joined the race together with few of my colleagues, and my managers too. My Vice President, who is my direct manager, my Director, who is my manager's manager, and my Executive Director, who is my manager's manager's manager. So yeah, quitter is the last image that I want them to have when they think of my name.

As I am writing this, I also realized that the timing that we recorded apparently went accordingly to our corporate title and age, being that the guy with most seniority (and also the oldest) finished fastest and the young little analyst me finished last. The bloody old man (My Exec Director) is 55 year old and he finished the race in 59minutes. Although he does rund on a daily basis and the shorter runs during his daily run is 10km and the longer ones would be around 30km. So this run is really just another day for him. I remember there was a day some couple months ago when he went to Korea for a business trip, and he managed to join and run a marathon (yes the full 42.195km) during his trip. This old guy is a beast, really. I on the hand, run like every once in a blue moon, and be really happy if I could finish a 5km.

My timing was relatively bad in my book, at 84minutes. I was targetting somewhere around 70minutes range but that would be in the ideal world. I can think of few reasons why I could not achieve my target. Like I wrote above, my inexperience in running trail, and the pouring rain definitely did not help and there were many points during the run where people were actually bottlenecked because many slowed down to tread the muddy trail. It was tough, really where my I can't really control a steady pace. And most of all I think it was the 2 sticks of cigars that I had the night prior to the race. Those 2 sticks definitely did not help me during the race. But those are just excuses. What I'm really looking forward to is to improve my timing and do a longer distance. Perhaps I should do a half marathon next time, and also revisit this place next year and get a better timing. All being said and done, I may still not be the fastest runner there is, but when I start something, I finish it.

Inflation. What does it means?

Inflation. A word that we commonly hear in the news, read in the newspaper but never really grasp the idea of what it really is. Many Malaysians of my age, we probably heard it first when we were around 11 year old, standard 5. that year was 1998, when Malaysia was hit hard by the Asian Economic Crisis. Our former Prime Minister Mahathir implemented Zero Inflation measure, which was believed to be the ideal economic measure at that time (Which of course modern economist now would disagree with this method).

If we were asked whether we know what inflation is, we probably will say that we know of it. Of course, we hear about it all the time now right?? But then again we can't really describe what it actually is, how it happens and how it really affects us in a bigger picture. Yeap, we are that ignorant, even though this percentage affects us in so many ways in our life. Why bother when we can just blame it all on the economists and the politicians right?

In the not so modern world, but not really ancient, somewhere in the 18th century, economists said that inflation is the decrease in the value of a currency. In  Layman term, If in year 1800 you can buy a pair of shoes for $1, in the year 1801 the same pair of shoes gonna cost you $1.50. That means your currency value diluted and you needed more of the currency to buy the same stuff. This is mainly caused by the supply of currency is bigger than the demand in the market. Too much currency(or fiat money in our case now) is being injected into the monetary system. 

However in the modern world nowadays, especially when the world has gone through the industrialization era, economists realized that inflation does not just got affected by the supply of currency itself, but also the supply of the goods or commodities in the market. Example, if the supply of shoes suddenly quadrupled in the year 1801, the same pair of shoes probably gonna cost less than $1 compared to the previous year. It would probably be $0.50. In this case, your currency value has increased because the same $1 can buy you 2 pair of shoes in a year gap. So the supply of goods and the supply of currency, they both play their roles to determine the value of your currency.

Some people came to me and said that inflation would not happened if we stopped using fiat money and use gold or silver as currency. WRONG! 2 examples. When Europe was in their expansion and colonization era, Spain had a serious inflation issue when their conquistadors from the South America started bringing home all the gold from the Aztecs civilization that they plundered. The sudden influx of gold has eroded gold's value, because everyone suddenly had so many gold to spend. The other example was, even gold coins in the old days used to be circulated in a way where they would be collected, melted, and then mixed with other metals such as silver or iron etc. 300 gold coins came in, 1000 "not 100% gold" coins came out. 300 gold coins went back to the people, 700 would be used by kings and governments to fund their wars. Pretty good war funding machine this inflation thing was, and still is.

That is why there are these terms "nominal" and "real" when financial people talk about investments or loans. Nominal is the percentage, gain or loss without factoring in the inflation rate, whereas real is the percentage when you factor in inflation rate. Example, if your salary increment last year was 3%, and the Malaysia average annual inflation rate is 3%, your nominal increment is 3%, but your real increment is actually 0%. Because your new salary actually has exactly the same purchase power of your old salary. If your increment is actually lower than the inflation rate, well, you're kinda got screwed. At the same time, Corporations and employers have been using inflation as a tool to cut your "real" salary without you even realizing it. They get to sell their goods at higher price due to inflation, but giving you sub inflation increment gives them bigger margin on their profit. Sneaky yeah?


Deflation
Now you pretty much understand that excess supply of money can cause inflation right? And you would have this idea in mind "Why don't the government stop printing money like mad and curb this inflation issue" US government probably has been quite infamous recently with their currency printing stimulus program, at the same time diluting their USD currency value. Let me introduce you to the other side of inflation, the dark side of inflation. Deflation. It is when inflation has negative value. So it works the other around. But it may sounds good at first, because unlike inflation, the value of your currency increases over time. Your purchasing power increases. But not good in a bigger picture.

Japan is an example of a country that has been battling deflation for decades. In the 80s when their economy was booming, productivity increased like mad in Japan, a lot of goods and products need to be moved and sold, but the currency supply did not increased at the same pace with their productivity. Add in the baby booming factor into the equation, you imagine a country with the same amount of money in circulation, but the population grew exponentially, and the goods and products also increased at the same time. Day by day, people realized that the currency they hold is increasing in value due to lack of supply, whereas the value of goods are decreasing because of oversupply. This will discourage people to spend or invest their money. This situation is called liquidity trap where money is being trapped, hoarded, and not circulated, which further worsen the situation of the lack supply of money.

Corporations will make less profit in this case, since income has been reduced due to lack of sales and lowered price because of oversupply. They can't use the cut "real" salary method, because there is no inflation in this case. The value of money is stronger over time. So even if they give you 0% increment, the nominal increment is 0% but you are getting a "real" increment, because the value of money increases. So there is no other method but to cut manpower or stop hiring, or just cut your salary period. Unemployment rate will rise, the cycle will continue. Deflation is considered a vicious cycle because it is very tough to get out of it. Go ask Abe, he is still struggling to bring Japan out of it and his over-hyped Abenomics doesn't do jack. He tried using US formula, introducing money stimulus, printing out Japanese Yen. Japanese corporations have been making billions of yen out of the program, but the corporations still refused to flow down the wealth down to the people. Theoretically, the corporations that benefited from this program should then give out more salary increment to their employees so that the money will move, generate the economy, and bring out all the hoarded money. But the corporations themselves are still afraid to spend and hoarding the money for themselves. Stingy bunch if you ask me.

Hyper-inflation
There is another version of inflation. Hyper-inflation. I think many of you probably have heard a story about how inflation gone on total rampage like nobody business. Zimbabwe. If you read in google, somewhere in 2008, the inflation rate of Zimbabwe was estimated to be 6.5sextillion percent. Haha did you read that, sextillion!! I didn't even know that word exist before I read about that article. If I were to write the number down, I probably had to spend like a few minutes to write the number down, and recount whether I had the right number of zeros. Basically the causes can be simplified to no regulations, printing money to fund war, and corruption. No need to write in further details. 

Needless to say, this situation is very bad since the money you hold pretty much worth nothing. $10 Zimbabwe dollar would worth nothing if the biggest note that they printed out was $100billion. You would think that this kind of thing would only happened to 3rd world country like Zimbabwe, but Germany themselves have had some series of hyperinflation drama with their Mark. Go google for more details.


The conclusion, inflation is an economic tool which has to be used very diligently. It is hard to pinpoint what is the ideal inflation rate, because every country has a different situation economic background, but many economists nowadays agree that 2% range is the ideal number to promote economic growth without eroding too much purchasing power from the people. Really need some extraordinary minds and leadership to dictate a country's economic move. May Malaysia be blessed with those people.

I myself am still learning about these things and may have different or wrong understanding about this whole thing. After all, I'm just a Chemical Engineering student, never have touched any economic textbooks my whole student life. If there are any wrongs in my writing, or anything that I misunderstood, please let me know or drop a comment. Or if you would like to have a cuppa to discuss about these kind of things, I am more than pleased to do so. I always have time to learn about these subjects that I missed when I was in school.

Farouk

We are getting old

When I write "We" in the title, I don't really mean for all the readers of this blog, but more to people to my age. And I do not mean old as in the number that starts ticking the year that we were born, but the way we think, the ideas that we have in mind and our opinions on the newer generations.

A while back, I read a facebook status of a friend of mine. A young mom, with a kid probably around 1-2year old. She was writing about how she religously believed that parents exposing their kids to young age (2-3yo) is such a bad thing. Of course in that same post she was saying how an examplary mom she was in raising her kids. Probably you guys with no kids like me have seen a few statement of these young parents indirectly inflating themselves claiming they're like the best mom/dad of the world and sharing about how good they are raising their kid(s). Don't wanna go too deep into that cos I'll probably do the same thing if I ever had any kids one day. That being said, at that time I kinda agreed with her, kids nowadays are getting too too much exposure of these things.

But then I was in an MRT(the train here) last week, taking a ride back from home. While I was standing in there I saw a child in his stroller. The kid was playing some kind of puzzle game, I don't know what game was that, but he looked like he was enjoying himself, and he seemed to be doing quite good at it. I was impressed, not just by the fact that he knows how to operate that thing, but also that he was solving puzzles with that game. Again, the kid was only like 2 or 3 year old. That kinda got me thinking that this kind of exposure was not too bad at all. I think it does generate a certain kind of interaction albeit not with human. Nevertheless, it still helps with the kids mind growing with many kinds of puzzles and problem solving applications.

When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games, and people of my parents generations also religiously believed that playing video games are bad for us kids. But I for one did not think so, and I know many would agree with me. Video games gave me a lot exposure to English language. You think I would pick up English by reading grammar books and the boring lame textbooks? hell no. And then there were (and still exist) computers and internet. Did you remember how during that day spending an hour in the internet would warrant a lecture from your parents? Nowadays it is so common we are carrying a gadget if not two with internet access. Our life will be incomplete and paralyzed if we don't have internet access in a day. Even some of our parents now have a facebook account and probably been posting more stuff than us nowadays. Probably even have more social networks accounts than we do. How time has changed yeah?

When I was in my video gaming days my dad would tell me all sort of stuff he used to do when he was a kid and those are the things that I have missed and did not get the chance to do. I still had the opportunities to play some of the traditional games, but apparently according to him that was like the milder and unoriginal version of them, and the golden age of traditional games were during his days. Okay dad... And now I see people of my generation whining about how the kids nowadays never play any traditional games and resented it. What I am trying to say is that if our ancestors thousand years before Us used to run for days to stalk and hunt cheetah for sport when they were teenagers, do you expect your kids to do the same thing? 

The World and technologies are moving so fast nowadays,I think that there is a part of Our brain, our subconscious mind is actually being defensive about these changes. Fear or scared would be too strong of a word, but I am trying to be a bit vanilla by saying defensive. We keep telling ourselves that the good old way is the best. Hey, we turned out just fine anyway right? No reason why it wouldn't work out the same with our kids. I think that by doing so, we are actually teaching our future generation of the World that was, and making them ignorant about the World that is, and the World that will be. We are imposing an old system and Ideas that have worked on Us, but not necessarily going to work on them.

Why would We wanna severe their exposure and access to the progress of this world? Shouldn't our task be preparing and nurturing them so that they will be up to date to this harsh and ever evolving world? I am not suggesting leaving the kids with unlimited and unmonitored usage of those technologies, but I do think severing the connection wholly is unwise. Again, I am being vanilla by using the word unwise. I have another stronger words in mind. The key is in moderation. Everything has to be in moderation, even moderation itself.

Ignorant. That will be another thing that I think we develop as we grow. We develop the attitude that We have been through enough and We know enough crap that the opinions of people younger than us means shit. This is Us in our mid to late 20s. Wait till we get to 50s, we are gonna think people should bow and obey to our every word just because we're old. By that time, We are going to consider the voice of younger generations are just like insects buzz and we will spank their asses for their opinions because they dare to talk back to us. What a great culture and society We are living in.  

Probably by this time, people with kids are already cursing me by writing this, saying that I know nothing because I don't have kids yet. But hey, they are right. I don't have kids yet, that's why I write this opinion of mine. Probably one day when I had one, my opinions would change, I would see things in their perspective. But that would actually just proved my points here. That day, when I started thinking like an old, outdated man, living in an old World inside my own head. By that time, you will see my Facebook status championing myself as the best dad in the World, uncontested and disregarding billions other Dads in the World. If it comes to that, please forgive me in advance.

When reality bites

First of all before you continue reading this post, I will have to warn you that at certain point you may find that this post will portray me as snobbish, or an elitist depending on how you want to to look at it, but I will write things as they are, and pretty sure a number of people may feel or or have the same thought.

I was in KLIA(Kuala Lumpur International Airport) a few weeks back, taking my flight from home back to Singapore. At the international departure hall, I saw there were a few groups of young people, around 20s, can't be more than 20. There were in a black suits, looking happy, and proud of themselves. They were surrounded by groups of families, their families. The time was about 7 or 8pm. I know those crowds, I know who they are, because I was one of them about 7 years ago.

Those kids were students under scholarship, waiting for their flight to a certain country, flying oversea to further their study. I still remember those moment. I was a proud young boy, and I was happy and ecstatic, and seeing my parents and family looking at me with contentment and pride at that time, that was definitely one of highlights in my life. I felt that that was the first step of me going to a very bright future. Again, as I told you this may sound snobbish and slightly cheesy. You have been warned. Considering Malaysia's status as a developing country, coming back home with a degree from a developed and considered as technologically most advanced country, I would come back as a golden boy waiting for opportunities to knock on my door and beg for me to pick it up. How naive I was. Sometimes I miss that boy, he didn't have to bother much about shits real world have to offer.

Well, I could write a lot of romantic stuffs about my moment on that day or my time when I was in Japan, but that would not be in this post. Skipping that to right after I graduated and got my degree. Needless to say, the reality was not as rosy, filled with butterflies and rainbow as I thought. My first job was not the most excellent job Malaysia has to offer, salary wise was not that great either, and the job that I was doing makes me feel horrible when I woke up in the morning knowing that I have to go to do some meaningless stuff.

The thing about when you studied abroad, you think that you went extra miles to get your degree. And with that extra miles, with that extra effort, you develop a feeling that you deserve more, and should get more. Hence the attitude that opportunities should just present itself to you. It would be unfair if I were to speak for all that studied abroad, but I know a few that had the same though like me. Hell, I hung out with a few after we graduated, and basically the subject of discussion was "how shit is not as great as we thought they would be" and "how unfair life is". But hey, don't start frowning upon your friend that studied abroad, they're probably as humble as a worm, and I am the one that was a pompous ass.

But if you look at another perspective, if you possess a degree from a local University, don't you think you are more deserving than someone without a tertiary education if you two were to compete for a job? If you have a certificate for a certain skill, don't you think you are more deserving than someone without? Like I said, when you went extra miles for something, you feel you should be prioritized. You think that you have a leverage which should give you an upper hand. When that did not go as you expected it to, you're left frustrated and devastated. 

That is the reality of the mentality of people of our generation, we really believe in the power of paper and certificate. We totally neglected the aspect of attitude, aptitude, networks, communication skill, the power to convince people and so on. At least not until we face the real life, ie got the fuck out of the education system and earning our own money. We may have realized the reality after a while, but that idea has been stapled so hard in our mind that even in our career we are still hunting for some certs and papers, convincing ourselves that those papers will generate more income, better career progression and so on. Each career discipline has their own specialized certs, so you know what I am talking about.

This shitty system could've had worked like 20-30years ago, where the amount of people with degree, with certificates, and all those papers were just a few, where executives and professionals are direly needed, at least in Malaysia. But nowadays, those papers are being printed out like mad, with quotas to be met each year. Those Uni professors will be in deep shit if the didn't, and the more people applying and getting professional certs meaning more application and membership fees for those so called independent organisation. Today, If I threw a stone at a crowd of people in Malaysia, I can bet you my 10 year old cigar it will land on someone with an engineering degree. And their title at work will be at least "assistant manager". I will write more about that in the future.

When we were growing up, many of us don't have parents with tertiary education, most only studied till high school, and work with that. In those days, Our parents saw people with those fancy papers, how fast they climb the corporate ladder and excel through life with those things. That was the kind of stories that were told to us and motivated us to pursue those papers. We were told that with those papers, we can be anything and achieve anything. We believed in that.

I am not blaming the generation X for shaping us this way. This is just a generation gap kind of thing. And the world changes and evolves. They couldn't see this coming. They just wanted the best for their kids the way they perceive the World, at the time we were growing. We would do the same things to our kids if we were in their shoes. You young parents would understand better I suppose. Which leaves us with a question, what kind of future generations will we shape? When we keep telling them that degrees and papers are not everything, but attitude, hardwork, and other aspects of life are far more important. I guess we will find that one out in 20-30 years time. Perhaps that day I will be reading my kid's writing about how wrong the things I told him or her. That's gotta be suck

The simple things in life

I had quite a pleasant afternoon with a friend of mine on the Wednesday. We had a lunch at Chinatown nearby my workplace, and he is also working with a bank nearby. They serve quite selection of Malay foods and the price is actually quite reasonable. Anther good thing about this place is they do allow smoking at most of their tables if not all. Being here in Singapore, places that allow smoking are actually coming to an extinction, and finding one is actually quite nice. So we had a fabulous smoke after our meals. Both of us smoke a 7 year old Fonseca Cadet, courtesy of my friend.

My friend did quite a fair bit of talking about investment products that he is planning to buy. Don't wanna bother you guys with the details of the products(also due to I didn't understand them that much in the first place). But at the end of the discussion of those investment products he said that we don't really need to be that rich, and at the end of the day, how much money is enough? True enough, and he shared with me a story about a fisherman and a business school student.

So there is this business school student, he met a fisherman watching his kids playing. He asked the fisherman what is he doing? The fisherman said that he just finished with his daily fishing and now watching his kids playing. After that he and his kids will go home and eat dinner that his wife cooks. He asks the fisherman what is he going to do tomorrow? the fisherman answers, "the same thing. Fish, watch my kids play, and my wife will cook my dinner for me".

The business school student says that instead of just doing that, he should make sure that tomorrow's catch is double than today, and make sure that the catch amount grows each day.So that the fisherman will have more income everyday. Fisherman says, "Good idea. But what shall I do at the end of the day?". Business school student answered, "You can go home, watch your kids play, and have your wife cooks dinner for you."

The business school student continues with his suggestion. He said that with the extra income that fisherman gets, he should saves up money, buy another boat and employ someone to fish for him. Making sure that the amount of catch increasing everyday, he can keep expanding his business and buys new boats. The fisherman looking interested and says, "Very good idea, but what will I do at the end of the day?". Business student answered, "You can still go home, watch your kids play, and your wife will cook dinner for you."

The business school student comes up with his closing proposal. He said that once the fisherman's business grew big enough, he will help the fisherman to make his business public, he will help IPO his company, and by that time the fisherman should be worth hundreds of millions. The fisherman agrees that it is a very good idea and asked what will he do at the end of the day.The student says, "You can watch your kids play, and your wife will cook dinner for you."

To cut the story short, the final question the fisherman asks the business student is, "Am I not doing them now?". So there you go. There are a lot of morals in this story that you can pick up, but I just wanna highlight that sometimes, in our pursue of of wealth and riches, we forgot to enjoy these "simple things" in life that actually matter the most. I don't have kids to watch them playing nor a wife to cook for me, but I go back home, read some books, watch some shows, stalk people in fb, smoke cigars or other menial things. But damn I enjoy every second of those time.

Of course you can always argue the simplicity of the argument from the business student, and there are ways he can debate and make his case stronger and more solid, but that this story is pretty much made up to serve the moral I just mentioned. Shit there are a lot of shitty Malay drama in the TV nowadays and they sure as hell has a shittier story and shittier morals that are pretty much destroying our newer generations. This fisherman v business student story beats the crap out of any Malay dramas/movies in my book.

From Engineering to Financial

So something I consider big happened in my life few months back. I have made a huge turn in my career by switching from engineering into financial industry. 

For those close personal friends of mine, they probably have seen it coming, since I had been spewing out a lot about financial things for the past couple of years. Now I am not saying I am a financial wizard that can triple my investment in a year time, but it has been a growing interest of mine. The fact that many of my friends here in Singapore do work in financial industry kinda like pulling me more and more towards this thing. It's kinda like an inevitable thing, I suppose.

I have spent about 2 years of my life in engineering industry before I realized that it is not the right thing for me. Which makes me wonder why did I choose to go and study it in the first place. I think the biggest reason in the first place is just how I was brought up in the family. My grandfather, as my dad said was a carpenter(in a way engineering and technical person), and my dad is an engineer. Has been one for more than 30 years and still working as an engineer.As the only son in the family, I was brought up knowing that the heritage of the male of the family to be a technical person. I am not blaming nor saying he pushes me into it, but when you spend years listening to your dad talking about engineering and technical things to you, it kinda gives you an idea that you should be one too! 

The other reason that I can think of is how the education system is in Malaysia. I did quite good when I was in school back in Malaysia, and the way how education system works in Malaysia is that students with good grades are pushed towards studying the core sciences subjects which eventually will make them ended up with Medicine or Engineering career. Any Malaysians would agree with me if I say back in the high school life, if you were to take the economics or accounting, you are considered second rated, and people will ask you "you're not good enough to get to sciences class??". People will look at you thinking you are a dumb brick with not-so-bright-future. Little that those high school kids know about the paycheck of people in financial industry. No offense to those people that took the economics/account but it was what it was, right? Which is kinda sad, because let's face it, high school kids are just gonna choose the best they think they could get(which in this case the science classes), but not really what they want. But then again, high school kids mostly don't really know what they want (at least I could say that for myself). Which brings me back to the first reason, that I thought I wanna be an engineer because my dad and my granddad was one. 

I am going to write a bit about the recruitment process that I went through to get this job. Actually I started looking for a job with intention of just testing the water. I only sent out resumes to very few companies, mostly are big mainstream banks you have seen their advertisements in major sport events. I didn't put too much hope into it and just be glad if I could get a reply. But after a few days I got a reply from this company that I am working with, and also another very famous(or infamous depending on your POV) American investment bank. I got the job only after one interview, and the process took me less than 2weeks, which is considered super fast. To think that I had spent 6months++ to get my previous job after sending out a lot of resumes to oil and chemical companies, and a couple of weeks to get a banking job. I checked my bachelor degree just to make sure it is written Chemical Engineering, not Finance. 

I guess things worked in my favour because this company just lost 2 of their Japanese staffs and they needed a replacement asap. Having a third language ability doesn't look too bad yeah? The very reason why I don't really regret to find this financial job at a later stage of my life, because the journey that I went through helped me into it. After all it is not just about the destination, but the journey getting there. And now that I am here, I just have to figure out which part or specific job I wanna do? client advisory? stays in operation?client onboarding? transaction filtering/investigation? product specialist? Interesting how I write client advisory in the first order....hehe.

All in all, I spent 2 years of my life in engineering and I didn't like it. I am not bashing engineering line, but I was just a man in a wrong place. I may have been working harder or longer as compared to my previous jobs, but at the end of everyday, I feel satisfied and I feel a sense of achievement. I am happy. After all, you are still going to work for tens of years of your life if you are not a child of a millionaire like me, so you better at least make sure you are happy. And different people gets happy over different things.

I am home, and I am happy

Working in Japan vs Singapore

People often asked me why did I not stay and work in Japan? Actually there are a lot of reasons, personal professionally, and economically. But I definitely won't go into the personal reasons on this post, and focus on the economical reason. aka salary, and living cost etc.

Sure working in Japan sounds fun. One of the most advanced countries in the world. A heaven for an engineer such as me, and you are being paid in Yen, an even stronger currency against Malaysian Ringgit(MYR) as compared to SGD. To make a comparison, I will use a fresh graduate engineer salary in both country. 
Japan : 160,000-200,000JPY (SGD2137-2672) 1000JPY = SGD13.36
Singapore : SGD2200-SGD2800

From the basic salary, I think we can say that they offer about the same amount. However, in Japan you have to go to the big cities in order to get the higher end of the salary. And the simple math is that living in a big cities in Japan equals to da bomb. Whereas in Singapore, it is quite a flat rate since the island is quite small. It might be a bit different, but I can tell you it is not as huge as Japan. I remember me and my room mate paid 45,000 yen/month for a 2 room apartment. But in Japan's big cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe etc, it would cost like 70,000yen/month for a small 1-room apartment. 

In Tokyo if you are earning 200k yen, and you spend 70k yen on your apartment, that's 35% of your salary gone in a blink. Whereas in Singapore if you are earning 2800k and spend 600 on your apartment, it is only 21% of your pay. That's 10% different and that is a lot. I could go on and write about how your gas bill will hike to about 10k yen/month during winter but I think I have already made my point.

Then there is tax issue. Well let's take a look at Japan's tax rate. I think their federal tax is 5% for the lowest bracket. Hey that's cheap right, 5%? Yeah right..that's only the federal tax. There is a prefecture tax that's gonna ninja another 15% of your money. 20% total goes to tax, and you don't even have get a free medical. Still have to pay insurance about 5k yen a month I think. The lowest bracket tax in Singapore is about 3% I think, I'm not really sure, you guys can confirm it yourselves in the IRAS website, but it sure as hell not 20%.

Anyway, this is just a simple writing, nothing too technical, and the way I write it may be bias against working in Japan, co I have never really liked the idea of it. Feel free to leave any feedback if there is any. Maybe there is actually good reason to work in Japan, money wise (keep in mind that I am talking about money wise, not many cute girls, easy to get AV etc). But with the recent trend of ever depreciating Yen value, I think I have quite a strong argument.

Long break and Aidil Adha

Today will be my last day working in my current company. Which means I am going to have quite a long break before I start my new job on 5th of Nov. Quite a good timing to change a job since this Friday will be a Aidil Adha celebration public holiday for us muslims. So I can enjoy and take my time to enjoy the festival, kinda like a compensation for my short Aidil Fitri leave.

This year my family will be going to Jengka, Pahang to visit one of my aunts. Apparently it is going to be quite a family gathering, from my father side. So there will be a lot of cousins and second cousins that I haven't seen for years, since I went to Japan in 2007. That being said, I actually haven't been to my aunt's place for quite some years already. Used to go there quite often when I was a kid. But then again, all of us always go "balik kampung" as a kid, but not so much as we grow older. Part of the reasons are probably that playing with the sand, climbing trees, and going down the ditch and water puddle to catch tadpoles are not that fun anymore. Man tadpoles are amazing. I used to be so excited watching them suddenly pop up a pair of legs and stuff.

The drive there is going to be a medium to long drive, probably like 3hours. Not sure how long it will take with the new highways and stuff. Anyway it doesn't really effect me that much cos I won't be the one driving. I never do this more than an hour driving thing. My dad will be driving my car, and I will probably sit in the passenger side, like a boss, like always.

So after about 1 year of working, now I will have my first long holiday. I do know that such a statement will irk people that have been working for tens of years. But damn, if there is only one thing that I miss about being a student is the long break. Damn 2 months break 2 times a year. But other than that, being a student sucks hard. People sometimes ask me whether I still have the plan to further my study. When I was being asked with that question, I will do my best to make a very offended face and say "No way". 

Getting back into shape

Few of you may know that I used to workout quite a lot when I was in Japan. I started out somewhere around 2009 and consistently continued doing so till my graduation day in 2011. I followed this very well known regime called P90X (I followed the program almost 90%) and I have to say the result that I got was very impressive, at least to my standard. I didn't even go to gym, not even one time, and the only equipments that I used were a few rubber bands, a push-up bar, and a pull-up bar. I didn't even use a dumbbell set. This is a picture taken back when I used to have a shape (other than round that I am now).

Picture was taken by a British friend of mine when I was in Tokushima, David Farries. Although I suspect that he had done some alteration on the picture cos I don't remember my abs were ever that toned, lol. So, if you actually read this post title, it says "getting back into shape", which implies that I am currently not in shape and have lost whatever I have built within the 2009-2011 period (well damn me). Behold, my current picture, after 1 year without working out. Well not really recent, but about 5 months ago.

This picture was taken by a cigar buddy of mine, Asyraf Fauzi during one of our cigar sessions. Man, I think I don't need to say how much about how much I hated myself for getting this complacent. The belly...oh god the manboobs. But now I've passed that self-hating and resenting phase, and from this point forward it's all about being determined to get back into shape. I think one of the reasons I get too complacent was because I was in "that phase" where I don't really care about how I look anymore cos it doesn't really matter, and I was happy. And another reasons was of course I was in a transition from a student that have aplenty of time to waste into a full-time corporate slave. My time management was quite bad, and my diet too. I couldn't find time to workout, or maybe the better phrase is, I was lazy. 

Anyway, now that I am back in the market, and back into the game, I figure that I have to shred all those bodyfat and get my abs ripped again (although I still didn't do that well when I used to have those abs). I have started working out again around early July this year, means I have worked out for about 3 months now. I'm still using P90X program as reference, but this time I don't really follow its schedule. By right P90X is a program that will get you ripped after 90days, hence the 90 in P90X. But I think that the 90days program is too intensive for me, and I wouldn't wanna go to work the next day all tired and sleepy. 

Currently, I work out 5times a day. 2 days for muscle, and 3 for cardio. This time I am using a 10kg dumbbell set instead of rubber bands. So far, even after only 3months, I think the result is pretty good. I think I'm losing some bodyfat, although my weight doesn't change, I am going to assume that it is because I am gaining muscle. I feel that this time, my biceps and triceps are gaining muscle at a quicker rate than before, most probably because I am using dumbbells set rather than rubber bands. Which makes me even more excited about my new job, since the company have a gym inside its building. Even though I am not sure about how well-equipped their gym is, but I am quite sure they have more than just one set of 10kg dumbbells.

After about 3months of working out, I am starting to increase the intensity of my workout and start playing out with the number of reps. As I am doing more in my workout, I am getting more tired the next day at work. I think one of the reasons is I am not eating enough to cover the calories that I used. Although this could result into me losing weight faster, but I will be too fatigue to keep doing workout, and I get tired easily during my workout. I mean I was really tired that the last 2 days I slept about 10hours, which I don't really do in the weekdays. Now I get a glimpse of idea of what Joe Rogan keep saying during UFC fights, that cutting weight can cause a very devastating effect on a fighter

So for the quick solution on this issue, I am planning to buy a workout supplement with high calorie to recover my energy, and probably some amino acid based supplement to help muscle recovery. I don't wanna start my new job being all tired and fatigued ;)

A year has passed

Hi guys,

Time really flies. It has been more than a year since I started working in Singapore. I believe now I am more used to the environment here both socially and professionally. In fact I am going to start with a new job this coming November. This future move means a whole lot to me, means things are getting better here, and I am seeing progress with my life. Needless to say, this new job offers a lot better package than my current one. 

I have to admit that the first 6 months of being here had been quite tough, money was real tight during those period, added with some personal issues bullshit. But, I've managed to make a few good friends, mostly from from my cigar smoking session on the weekend. And recently, a friend of mine, a Japanese gal from my University Tokushima time came over to work here. Unfortunately, her schedule is quite busy and she usually works on the weekend. Which means I still have a lot of open slots in my weekend schedule (if I were in Singapore).

Anyway, other than my upcoming new job, I had another offer from a tyre manufacturing company. The position was Safety Engineer. Requires a lot of travelling, about 2weeks a month (mostly to developing APAC coutries such as Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, India etc), and after a year the position will be relocated to Bangkok, Thailand. They said that the package in Bangkok will be an expat package although it has not been finalized yet. 

Money wise the safety engineer position offered about 10% more than the other one that I accepted. It will be a lot more if including the allowances from travelling. It was a very hard decision but in the end I've decided that I'd rather stay here in Singapore rather than spending yet some time settling down in a new country. And I don't think that giving up a good lifestyle, living in a country with a good infrastructures with a culture that I am very familiar with. Not to mention that I am much closer to friends and family here, compared to Bangkok. However, what I actually fear the most is living with an expat package in Bangkok is....the temptation, which I'm pretty sure I'll cave in. hahaha

Anyway, my employment with my current company will last until 22nd Oct, and new job will start on 5th Nov. So I'll have about 2 weeks free time to celebrate Eid Adha. Hit me up if wanna hang up or puff some cigs. cheers!

Monthly expenses in Singapore

It is very normal for Malaysians to be very sceptical about working overseas. Everytime they hear you say in Singapore you can earn this much money, first reply from them would be "but the living cost is higher right???? so in the end you cannot save that much" bla bla bla yada yada. So in this post I will try to list out your expected expenses in Sg and make a comparison with expenses in Malaysia.

This is very subjective depending on the spending power of different individuals. But here are the basic breakdowns on rough estimates, and the number inside the bracket is my own expenses.

Room Rental (room, not the whole apartment) : $450-600 ($600)
Foods : $400-500 ($500)
Monthly public transport : $30-80 ($30)
Coach ticket (My-Sg once a month) : $60-100 ($60)

These four things are the most basic things that you will have to spend on monthly. Room rental can be cheaper if you choose to live or work far from the city. can even go as high as $800 if you want a master bedroom. Mine is in queenstown, which is quite close to the city, and comes with AC, inclusive of water and electricity bill. For $600, I consider it to be fairly cheap.

As for food, one meal at a hawker center cost you about $3-$5. For muslims, there is no need to worry about getting Halal food because every hawker center I have been to have a number of Halal (mostly Malays) food sections. On the weekend, usually I splurge a bit dining in a restaurant/fancier places. If you can restraint yourselves from going to restaurants and eat at a hawker center for the whole month, i believe you can cut the expenses to like $300. Haha.

Monthly public transport expenses (MRT and bus) is really depending on how far you live from your workplace. I live like 15minutes walking distance from my workplace. So I save a lot from commuting home-workplace-home. So if you got a job in a city, and thinking about renting far away to get cheaper rent, you might want to consider whether its worth the extra money and TIME on commuting.

So for my case, including the monthly traveling from My-Sg, it will be $1190. Lets assume I am spending $200 on entertainment and shopping etc, and another $400 for my parents allowance. My total expense now is $1790.  Now, lets assume again, (keyword : assume) that I am earning $2500. Damn I am saving a whopping $710 a month. At current exchange rate $1=2.41, that is like RM1711.11.

But please remember there will always an urge to buy fancy shit like iphone, galaxy tab, some cigars, etc bla bla bla that can actually reduce that saving amount by a lot. lol

NOW, HOW ABOUT IN MALAYSIA??

average salary for a fresh grad engineer : RM2500
Rental :RM150-300 (free for most cos leeching parents)
Car downpayment : RM400-500 (free for those who drive daddy's car)
Petrol : RM200 (free for those leeching daddy's credit card)
Car service : idk, but i bet its more if you drive a proton. lol
Meals : RM400-500 (free again for those leeching parents)
parents allowance : varies

Yeah this is pretty much the expenses for malaysians that are working in malaysia. You can save a LOT, a whole lot, if you are leeching your parents, I know this because I was one when I was working in Malaysia (although I have my own pimping car, which is not a proton btw. haha). But then again, do you really wanna make a comparison between living your life leeching your parents with living in a foreign country independently?


*For those who don't know, it is very common in Malaysia for a single adult to still live with their parents

I am going to calculate the monthly expenses using the lowest range and the total is RM1150, not including entertainment and parents allowance. And yes, 11%+ of your salary will be deducted for your EPF thing. In the end, working in Singapore allows you to save at least double than what you can in Malaysia. Fact. Anybody says otherwise is in denial or has too much patriotism in them. Don't get me wrong, I too am a patriotic, but I am also a very practical and a bit opportunistic person =)


Cheers!

Work Pass part 2

Hi, remember in part 1 I wrote about Work Pass classification (WP,S-Pass, Emplyment Pass) and I have mentioned the salary range is as follows :

    WP       : Below 2000
    S-Pass  : S$2000-2800
    EP        : S$2800 and above

This guideline actually implemented on 1st of July 2011. Before that the salary requirement for each pass is lower and used to be like this :

    WP       : Below 1800
    S-Pass  : S$1800-2500
    EP        : S$2500 and above

The reason why they increased this salary requirement is because of the very high influx of foreigners into the country, not just for hard labours but also for professional positions. This has been an issue lately since their fresh graduates have to compete with foreigners that are willing to do the same work with lower pay. Even though the guideline has been revised recently (July), I guess due to a lot of pressure from the citizens, it has been increased again and will be effective from 1st of January 2011. The new salary requirement will be as follows :

    WP        : Below 2000
    S-Pass   : S$2000-2999
    EP (Q1)  : S$3000-4499
    EP (P2)  : S$4500-7999
    EP (Q1)  : S$8000 and above

The way I see this thing, it could be a double edge sword. If i were looking for a job, I could ask for $3000 starting pay and give this requirement issue as a leverage and excuse to justify my expectation. Lets assume that currently I am earning $2500 ( barely passed the previous req.), and my EP is going to end on next September. After 1 year of working, and before my EP expire, perhaps I could ask my employer to give me $500 increment to retain my status as EP holder. If they are not willing to do so, I could easily go find another job and put $3000 as expected salary (It is considered reasonable for an engineer with 1y exp to earn $3000 monthly in Singapore). I can't really say for sure, but I think if you play this thing right, it can actually benefit you. I guess we'll see what happens next September =)

Okay, for this post I will write about the chronology on how to apply for the work pass.

1. Get the job
First thing first, you have to get a job first.

2. The company will apply the Work Pass for you
Like I have mentioned before, your future company will apply the pass for you, because the pass is only valid when you are working with the company that did the application, if you are going to change company, you will have to reapply a new pass even when your pass still have some time before expiry. Your company will ask for the informations needed for this application.

3. In Principal Approval (IPA)
You should get your IPA within 1-14days after your application. In my case, it only took me 1 day. Your company will get the reply from Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and they will forward you the e-mail. There will be a Medical check-up form attached together with the IPA. Remember that this is only in-principal approval letter, you still need to pass the medical check-up before you can actually get the work pass. However, You actually can start working once you have received this letter. This letter is valid for 2months if im not mistaken.

4. Medical check-up.
Easy step, go to any Hospital that have this service. I went to Raffles Hospital in Bugis. Wait for about 3-4days for the blood and X-ray result (no urine test) and give the result to your HR dept. They will key-in the data and do whatever they have to do. They will revert back to you and pass you a printed letter from MOM that will tell you what to do next

5. Appointment with Employment Pass Services Centre (EPSC)
The letter will tell you to book an appointment via online, can't remember the site but it was written in the letter. Just follow the instructions given, but the earliest date you might get will be in another 7days because there are usually fully booked. EPSC is located at River Walk building, near Clarke Quay MRT station. Go there, give them your EPSC letter, medical check-up letter, and few other things mentioned in the letter. You can bring your own passport photo or you can make one there. They will take your fingerprints and give you a date when you can pick-up your card.

6. Get your card
The officer at EPSC told me that I can pick up mine after 3 days. It can be any day so I chose to pick it up on Sat since they are open (half-day). There you go. Now you are officially legal to work in Singapore

As you can see, this process actually can take quite long, might be about 2-3weeks. There are some complications from this long process of pass application, and I will let you know about it in future post.


Cheers!