Monday, 31 December 2012
Sunday, 30 December 2012
A Modest Proposal on Cults, Trots, Socialist Unity, the Great Day and LaLa-ism
While the SWP are busy as usual ritually expelling “traitors” in advance of their annual conference, I was surprised at the post by SU editor Andy Newman “THE “ALLIANCE FOR WORKERS LIBERTY” – THE DYNAMICS OF A MALIGNANT CULT
I must admit to wondering why Andy has picked on the AWL? Who in my perhaps limited contact so far, have not appeared to be as narrow and dogmatic as the other various Heinz 57 Trotskyite/Anarchist sects? However, I think that this is actually all just a bit of a red herring (no pun intended).
Since surely all of the “ultra left” are by definition going to be in some form of a cult since they all profess to be “revolutionaries”. If you think the world is so horrible you need revolutionary change, then you are going to have to have some sort of tight discipline and control to try and bring it about?
The real problem is not that they are “cults” or that they are “revolutionaries”. Good luck to them if that is what they believe (dare I say, it’s a free country!). The real problem is that they think that by their actions they can bring about “the Revolution” in this country sometime soon.
How on earth can anyone honestly think there any practical likelihood of there being any sort of a revolution in this country?
Now, I want radical change in our society. But all my adult life I have seen articles and posters advertising meetings that proclaim the “great day of the revolution” is just around the corner. What complete and utter rubbish.
The idea that if the unions were just more militant, organised more demos, occupied some phone box and took more strike action, then the masses would come to their senses and storm Buckingham Place is just fantasy and indulgent politics. There was more chance of the Mayan prophesies happening.
Since 2007 there has been an open goal due to the economic crisis and there is not the slightest interest whatsoever in revolutionary class politics.
This is not about the “politics”. I am a fully paid up believer in reformism, parliamentary democracy, rule of law, equality in all aspects, strong trade unions and a genuine mixed economy. Yet I will work with anyone who may completely disagree with me in the long run but will sees the sense in unity to bring about common and achievable immediate goals.
There cannot in my view be any unity with those who think that their primary purpose is to bring about something (the Great Day) that is silly, ridiculous and laughable. Everything they do is driven by this obsession. So we cannot trust them nor their many and competing “Fronts”. We also cannot work with those who will do what they are told by their central committees regardless of what they believe in or were elected to do.
My father believed that communism in this country was inevitable, but he thought it would not happen in his lifetime nor for many generations. In the meanwhile he would support the Labour Party and work with others such as the Communist Party of the time, in the interests of working class people. While they and others may believe in revolution, they are realistic about the prospects and will not sell out the interests of working people to satisfy nonsensical dogma.
So my New Year 2012 Modest Proposal is - we can have a socialist unity of sorts. But not with LaLa-ism
2012 / 2013
How will 2013 be for investors? On balance, I have to say it will be very good for global equities. Thanks to Bernanke's pronouncement, liquidity will continue to be ample, depressing interest rates. The certainty in maintaining low rates will now push a lot more funds on the sidelines to search for better returns. There is the one thing which is holding them back, the fiscal cliff. Even if no resolution is seen in the first week of January, it is not all bad. The ball will swing back to Obama and they will eventually come to some conclusion before January is over.
There is a lot of pent-up demand for investment spending in the USA that will get unleashed next year. Businesses have delayed capital projects in anticipation of the fiscal cliff. Capital spending has been notably weak in the last six months, much weaker than during the rest of the recovery. So a political deal, or even just some clarity about the future, could result in a nice bounce back in capital spending after the beginning of the year.
Inflation will not be raising its head anytime soon because Iran and Iraq are ramping up production to make up for lost time, so much so that Saudi Arabia, the swing producer has been downsizing its monthly production to accommodate the rise in supply. If that is the case, it will prolong and help recovery.
Naturally, the case is a bit different with Malaysia and Singapore with the upcoming elections in Malaysia. We will have to wait out the outcome.
2012 The Year That Was
Best Commodity (+24%): Wheat prices rose in 2012 as drought cut into supply from the grain belts of Russia, Australia, and the U.S. Wheat is a $14.4 billion crop in the U.S., where it ranks fourth behind corn, soybeans, and hay.
Best Exchange-Traded Fund (+77%): Signs of a housing recovery sent shares of homebuilders soaring this year, boosting the IShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction Index Fund (ITB).
Worst Commodity (-35%): Abundant supply is depressing coffee prices. Brazil, the world’s largest grower, has almost doubled its output in the past decade, producing another record crop this year.
Worst U.S. Large-Cap Stock (-43%): Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ)annus horribilis was marked by a third-quarter loss that was its worst ever, including an $8 billion writedown related to the dwindling value of its enterprise services business. HP later took an $8.8 billion writedown related to accounting problems at Autonomy, a software maker it acquired last year. In September, HP announced plans for 29,000 job cuts.
Worst Initial Public Offering (-30%): Facebook (FB) plunged as much as 53 percent after its $16 billion debut in May. The stock rallied on news that third-quarter sales rose 32 percent, beating analysts’ estimates.
Investing in REITS
I've done a lot of research on REITs investing this year. In singapore, a very profitable reit i invested in was suntec reit. I bought at 1.16 and now the price is at 1.62. REITS have generally performed well in the Singapore market this year with an average return of 37.5%.
REITS are actually easier to research on compared to other company stocks. REITS own and manage properties. They collect rental income from their tenants and distribute the income to the shareholders. In Singapore, REITS are required to distribute 90% of the collected rental to shareholders. Average dividend for reits are in the range of 6-7% annually.
The easiest way to value a reit is to look at its Net Asset Value(NAV). This value can be found in most of the reits' financial statement. It is calculated based on its assets - liabilities then divided by the number of common shares the reit has. This will give us the NAV per share. If the reit is trading below its NAV price, then the reit is said to be undervalued and its worth considering to buy.
Of course analyzing companies cannot be based on one component alone. We still have to look at its profit for the past few years, its cashflow and also its business structure and strategy. If a reit has good expansion plan without taking too much debt, then we can predict that its profit will increase over time. This gives us reason to invest in the reit.
What will be the performance of reits for the next year in 2013? From my analysis, share prices of reits have increased a substantial amount this year but some are still undervalued. For exmple suntec reit NAV is 1.97 while its trading at 1.62 now below its NAV. However, historical stock price of suntec reit tops out below 1.80 and seldom breaks above it. In Singapore, property prices are hitting record highs and many analyst have warned that property prices may cool in 2013. However, commecial property prices are still doing good and as long as the Singapore economy continue to be healthy, reits that own retail malls and commercial offices should still do well.
REITS are actually easier to research on compared to other company stocks. REITS own and manage properties. They collect rental income from their tenants and distribute the income to the shareholders. In Singapore, REITS are required to distribute 90% of the collected rental to shareholders. Average dividend for reits are in the range of 6-7% annually.
The easiest way to value a reit is to look at its Net Asset Value(NAV). This value can be found in most of the reits' financial statement. It is calculated based on its assets - liabilities then divided by the number of common shares the reit has. This will give us the NAV per share. If the reit is trading below its NAV price, then the reit is said to be undervalued and its worth considering to buy.
Of course analyzing companies cannot be based on one component alone. We still have to look at its profit for the past few years, its cashflow and also its business structure and strategy. If a reit has good expansion plan without taking too much debt, then we can predict that its profit will increase over time. This gives us reason to invest in the reit.
What will be the performance of reits for the next year in 2013? From my analysis, share prices of reits have increased a substantial amount this year but some are still undervalued. For exmple suntec reit NAV is 1.97 while its trading at 1.62 now below its NAV. However, historical stock price of suntec reit tops out below 1.80 and seldom breaks above it. In Singapore, property prices are hitting record highs and many analyst have warned that property prices may cool in 2013. However, commecial property prices are still doing good and as long as the Singapore economy continue to be healthy, reits that own retail malls and commercial offices should still do well.
Saturday, 29 December 2012
My 2012 Olympic Highlights: George Osborne getting booed at the Paralympics:)
Just thinking of some of my highlights of the Olympic 2012 year.
nuff said.
Friday, 28 December 2012
Payday Loans? Hopefully only the turkey will get stuffed this Christmas
It shows up what thieves Payday loan companies are and how they exploit the poor and vulnerable.
You would pay over 4000% APR interest on a 38 day £400 loan from Wonga or 26.8% APR from a credit union loan over a year.
If you paid the £400 off over a year then you would still pay over £100 less in interest than with Wonga in 38 days.
Good luck to Stella Creasy MP and her #Sharkstoppers campaign.
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Les Miz
I have been so looking forward to the movie. Les Miz is easily my all time favourite musical ever, beating out the grander Sound of Music, West Side Story and King & I. However, not everything works when you try to translate musicals to films, Sweeney Todd is one, Phantom was the other, because expectations were so high and the key is in the director and framing of the film.
It is easier for success for stage to go to film, it usually fails when its film to musical stage, e.g. Grease or Legally Blonde and even Lion King. I have watched the musical 4x in various places and owns the 10th and 25th cd dvd collection as well, so I am a die hard fan.
Alfie Boe, one of the best ever Jean Valjean next to Colm Wilkinson. You should listen to them before you go hear Hugh Jackman's version.
First the casting, not many realise Hugh Jackman was an established musical stage performer before he became an action actor on film, so this choice was a guaranteed success. Owing to the proximity of film, one really must know how to act and not just sing. The worst casting ever was Russell Crowe as Javert, OMG his voice is so weak and unappealing. I cringed and cringed everytime he opens his mouth. When he only has to act, he is good.
When I heard Anne Hathaway was cast as Fantine, I had doubts. After the movie, she should win an Oscar, she is very very good. Eddie Redmayne was excellent as Marius, as was Samantha Barks as Eponine. Sacha Baron Cohen was a smart casting job in the funny role of Thenardier. As was Helena Bonham Carter as his raunchy wife. Everything was near perfect except Russell Crowe, can we reshoot the film without him.
The ever exquisite lea Salonga's brilliant turn as Eponine, after a few years she came back to Les Miz and played the role of Fantine as well.
The film is based on the musical of the same name by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg which is in turn based on Les Misérables, the 1862 French novel by Victor Hugo. The film is directed by Tom Hooper, scripted by William Nicholson, Boublil, Schönberg and Herbert Kretzmer, and stars an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, and Amanda Seyfried. The film tells the story of Jean Valjean, a former prisoner who becomes mayor of a town in France. Valjean agrees to take care of Cosette, the illegitimate daughter of Fantine, and must avoid being captured again by Javert, a police inspector.
Being written in French, it was all the more spectacular when you consider the lyrics being translated into English, extremely well translated I must say by Herbert Kretzmer. Though over the years, the musical has already been sung in 20 other languages worldwide.
Finally, more people can view the splendour of Les Miz. The songs are beautiful. Its a sad and depressing storyline though wonderful no doubt. Thankfully it had the Thernardiers for a bit of fun and jokes.
Hear Phillip Quast as Javert then you will appreciate how bad Russell Crowe's singing voice was.
The filming had a better effect in that actors were made to sing their lines live with a mic on their lapels (airbrushed out post production) with just minimal piano backing, the instrumentation came in post production and that added a lot of realism in the way the actors conveyed the songs. Its very different from the past where they engaged good actors but their voices dubbed with real singers, e.g. Audrey Hepburn and Deborah Kerr.
Be prepared to bring loads of tissues, you will cry buckets and then rush out to buy the CD collection no doubt.
Hugh Jackman was unrecognisable in the first 15 minutes of the movie. You will love Anne Hathaway no end, her rendition of I Dreamed A Dream was stupendous, and I have seen some great ones on the musical stage. Strangely enough, Hathaway's mum used to play the role of Fantine on stage before giving the role up to have her baby (Anne).
Why is the musical so great, the music is incredible but the story was everlasting and relevant. Oppression, injustice, search for God and religion, redemption, sacrifice, fighting for a higher cause, the greatness of the individual in the grander scheme of things.
In the beginning to adap Victor Hugo's book was not going to be easy, some of the memorable quotes from the book:
Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly on their destinies, as what they do.
Anger may be foolish and absurd, and one may be wrongly irritated, but a man never feels outraged unless in some respect he is fundamentally right.
If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.
Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms.
Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.
I do not understand how God, the father of men, can torture his children and his grandchildren, and hear them cry without being tortured himself.
Love almost replaces thought. Love is a burning forgetfulness of everything else.
There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philo-sophy there must be action.
Hence all things considered, the musical managed to captured most of the elements and philosophy in Hugo's book entwined with a wonderful story and score.
The great thing is that in the musical/film, they have crafted wonderful lines as well, very memorable:
Do you Hear the People sing? Singing the songs of angry men.
When our ranks begin to form...will you take your place with me?
Let others rise to take our place, until the Earth is free!
Damn their warnings, damn their lies! They will see the people rise!
"i am reaching, but i fall. and the night is closing in. as i stare into the void, to the whirlpool of my sin"
"tomorrow is the judgment day, tomorrow we'll discover what our God in heaven has in store. one more dawn! one more day! one day more!!!!!!"
"He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
"Without me, his world will go on turning- a world that's full of happiness that I have never known!"
"red, the blood of angry men! Black, the dark of ages past! Red, a world about to dawn. Black, the night that ends at last!"
To Love another person is to see the face of god.
I'll sleep in your embrace at last!
Final Verdict: Very Good 9/10 (would have been 10/10 without Russell Crowe)
This song or rather the anthem Do You Hear The People Sing always make me reflect on our struggles as Malaysians in trying to advance for a fairer and more equal destiny. I hope to hear many of us sing this song leading up to the upcoming election ...
It is easier for success for stage to go to film, it usually fails when its film to musical stage, e.g. Grease or Legally Blonde and even Lion King. I have watched the musical 4x in various places and owns the 10th and 25th cd dvd collection as well, so I am a die hard fan.
Alfie Boe, one of the best ever Jean Valjean next to Colm Wilkinson. You should listen to them before you go hear Hugh Jackman's version.
First the casting, not many realise Hugh Jackman was an established musical stage performer before he became an action actor on film, so this choice was a guaranteed success. Owing to the proximity of film, one really must know how to act and not just sing. The worst casting ever was Russell Crowe as Javert, OMG his voice is so weak and unappealing. I cringed and cringed everytime he opens his mouth. When he only has to act, he is good.
When I heard Anne Hathaway was cast as Fantine, I had doubts. After the movie, she should win an Oscar, she is very very good. Eddie Redmayne was excellent as Marius, as was Samantha Barks as Eponine. Sacha Baron Cohen was a smart casting job in the funny role of Thenardier. As was Helena Bonham Carter as his raunchy wife. Everything was near perfect except Russell Crowe, can we reshoot the film without him.
The ever exquisite lea Salonga's brilliant turn as Eponine, after a few years she came back to Les Miz and played the role of Fantine as well.
The film is based on the musical of the same name by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg which is in turn based on Les Misérables, the 1862 French novel by Victor Hugo. The film is directed by Tom Hooper, scripted by William Nicholson, Boublil, Schönberg and Herbert Kretzmer, and stars an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, and Amanda Seyfried. The film tells the story of Jean Valjean, a former prisoner who becomes mayor of a town in France. Valjean agrees to take care of Cosette, the illegitimate daughter of Fantine, and must avoid being captured again by Javert, a police inspector.
Being written in French, it was all the more spectacular when you consider the lyrics being translated into English, extremely well translated I must say by Herbert Kretzmer. Though over the years, the musical has already been sung in 20 other languages worldwide.
Finally, more people can view the splendour of Les Miz. The songs are beautiful. Its a sad and depressing storyline though wonderful no doubt. Thankfully it had the Thernardiers for a bit of fun and jokes.
Hear Phillip Quast as Javert then you will appreciate how bad Russell Crowe's singing voice was.
The filming had a better effect in that actors were made to sing their lines live with a mic on their lapels (airbrushed out post production) with just minimal piano backing, the instrumentation came in post production and that added a lot of realism in the way the actors conveyed the songs. Its very different from the past where they engaged good actors but their voices dubbed with real singers, e.g. Audrey Hepburn and Deborah Kerr.
Be prepared to bring loads of tissues, you will cry buckets and then rush out to buy the CD collection no doubt.
Hugh Jackman was unrecognisable in the first 15 minutes of the movie. You will love Anne Hathaway no end, her rendition of I Dreamed A Dream was stupendous, and I have seen some great ones on the musical stage. Strangely enough, Hathaway's mum used to play the role of Fantine on stage before giving the role up to have her baby (Anne).
Why is the musical so great, the music is incredible but the story was everlasting and relevant. Oppression, injustice, search for God and religion, redemption, sacrifice, fighting for a higher cause, the greatness of the individual in the grander scheme of things.
In the beginning to adap Victor Hugo's book was not going to be easy, some of the memorable quotes from the book:
Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly on their destinies, as what they do.
Anger may be foolish and absurd, and one may be wrongly irritated, but a man never feels outraged unless in some respect he is fundamentally right.
If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.
Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms.
Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.
I do not understand how God, the father of men, can torture his children and his grandchildren, and hear them cry without being tortured himself.
Love almost replaces thought. Love is a burning forgetfulness of everything else.
There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philo-sophy there must be action.
Hence all things considered, the musical managed to captured most of the elements and philosophy in Hugo's book entwined with a wonderful story and score.
The great thing is that in the musical/film, they have crafted wonderful lines as well, very memorable:
Do you Hear the People sing? Singing the songs of angry men.
When our ranks begin to form...will you take your place with me?
Let others rise to take our place, until the Earth is free!
Damn their warnings, damn their lies! They will see the people rise!
"i am reaching, but i fall. and the night is closing in. as i stare into the void, to the whirlpool of my sin"
"tomorrow is the judgment day, tomorrow we'll discover what our God in heaven has in store. one more dawn! one more day! one day more!!!!!!"
"He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
"Without me, his world will go on turning- a world that's full of happiness that I have never known!"
"red, the blood of angry men! Black, the dark of ages past! Red, a world about to dawn. Black, the night that ends at last!"
To Love another person is to see the face of god.
I'll sleep in your embrace at last!
Final Verdict: Very Good 9/10 (would have been 10/10 without Russell Crowe)
This song or rather the anthem Do You Hear The People Sing always make me reflect on our struggles as Malaysians in trying to advance for a fairer and more equal destiny. I hope to hear many of us sing this song leading up to the upcoming election ...
"Pensions will not exist by 2050"
Michael Johnson, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies is quoted here as warning that private pensions will soon cease to exist since young people see having immediate access to money more important than long term retirement plans.
I need to check with Michael that he has not been misquoted since the Telegraph has been writing some complete hysterical drivel about pensions lately. The reasoning is also a bit odd and Michael is usually pretty "bang on" about private pensions (not public sector pensions).
Young people have always wanted ready access to their money and been reluctant to save for your retirement. That is why you and your employer need incentives to join a pension and (like taxes) for it to be made compulsory.
Also young (and older) people are not being completely stupid about not saving for their pensions. This is because for many the pension they are currently offered or have access to is just completely rubbish. They are being ripped off for a hugely expensive product that offers them no certainty in retirement.
While I think everyone should save for their pensions I can understand why so many make the understandable (and even rational?) choice not to save.
Auto-enrolment and universal pensions will make a difference. But unless people have the confidence to invest in a product that gives them some sort of guarantee of financial security in their old age then I think many won't bother. This future burden on the taxpayer should be the key issue for the Telegraph.
I suspect that Michael is being polemic in order to bring attention to a real serious problem.
Yet his reported solution is wrong. Saving in a short term ISA is not the answer but an affordable and sustainable defined benefit scheme for the private sector is. It is also going to have to be compulsory (at some stage).
Unless we sort this out I suspect we will soon be seeing future articles glamorising the workhouse for pensioners.
China - Politics, Power, Corruption, Capitalism, Disenchantment
Sigh ... it happens everywhere, China is no different. The exception being, documentary reporting such as this do not excite or move most Malaysians anymore, we have tons of our own tales to tell. Btw, Bloomberg's website has been banned because of this story, which Bloomberg later expanded into a research project of enormous depth. Troubling for Beijing for sure. Now, the economic disparity is still not so great but its getting worse by the day in China. If people starts to suffer unemployment, you can bet your last dollar there is enough disenchantment for dislocation everywhere in China. Beijing has been extra careful and was vigilant in taking out Bo Xilai, but for every Bo there are another 100 princelings abusing their power. Certainly a recipe to be played out in the future, more transparency, less power?? ... if that is unlikely, then there will be blood and tears.
------------------------------
Lying in a Beijing military hospital in 1990, General Wang Zhen told a visitor he felt betrayed. Decades after he risked his life fighting for an egalitarian utopia, the ideals he held as one of Communist China’s founding fathers were being undermined by the capitalist ways of his children -- business leaders in finance, aviation and computers.
“Turtle eggs,” he said to the visiting well-wisher, using a slang term for bastards. “I don’t acknowledge them as my sons.”
Two of the sons now are planning to turn a valley in northwestern China where their father once saved Mao Zedong’s army from starvation into a $1.6 billion tourist attraction. The resort in Nanniwan would have a revolution-era theme and tourist-friendly versions of the cave homes in which cadres once sheltered from the cold.
One son behind the project, Wang Jun, helped build two of the country’s biggest state-owned empires: Citic (6030) Group Corp., the state-run investment behemoth that was the first company to sell bonds abroad since the revolution; and China Poly Group Corp., once an arm of the military, that sold weapons and drilled for oil in Africa.
Today, the 71-year-old Wang Jun is considered the godfather of golf in China. He’s also chairman of a Hong Kong-listed company that jointly controls a pawnshop operator and of a firm providing back-office technology services to Chinese police, customs and banks.
His Australia-educated daughter, Jingjing, gives her home address in business filings as a $7 million Hong Kong apartment partly owned by Citic. Her daughter, 21-year-old Clare, details her life on social media, from the Swiss boarding school she attended to business-class airport lounges. Her “look of the day” posted on Aug. 24 featured pictures of a Lady Dior (CDI) handbag, gold-studded Valentino shoes and an Alexander McQueen bracelet. Those accessories would cost about $5,000, more than half a year’s wages for the average Beijing worker.
The family’s wealth traces back to a gamble taken by General Wang and a group of battle-hardened revolutionaries, who are revered in China as the “Eight Immortals.” Backing Deng Xiaoping two years after Mao’s death in 1976, they wagered that opening China to the outside world would raise living standards, while avoiding social upheaval that would threaten the Communist Party’s grip on power.
New Class
In three decades, they and their successors lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty and created a home-owning middle class as China rose to become the world’s second-biggest economy. Chinese on average now eat six times more meat than they did in 1976, and 100 million people have traded in their bicycles for automobiles.
The Immortals also sowed the seeds of one of the biggest challenges to the Party’s authority. They entrusted some of the key assets of the state to their children, many of whom became wealthy. It was the beginning of a new elite class, now known as princelings. This is fueling public anger over unequal accumulation of wealth, unfair access to opportunity and exploitation of privilege -- all at odds with the original aims of the communist revolution.
Bloomberg's Full Special Report: Revolution to Riches
To reveal the scale and origins of this red aristocracy, Bloomberg News traced the fortunes of 103 people, the Immortals’ direct descendants and their spouses. The result is a detailed look at one part of China’s elite and how its members reaped benefits from the country’s boom.
State Control
In the 1980s, they were chosen to run the new state conglomerates. In the 1990s, they tapped into real estate and the nation’s growing hunger for coal and steel. Today the Immortals’ grandchildren are players in private equity amid China’s integration into the global economy.
Twenty-six of the heirs ran or held top positions in state- owned companies that dominate the economy, data compiled by Bloomberg News show. Three children alone -- General Wang’s son, Wang Jun; Deng’s son-in-law, He Ping; and Chen Yuan, the son of Mao’s economic tsar -- headed or still run state-owned companies with combined assets of about $1.6 trillion in 2011. That is equivalent to more than a fifth of China’s annual economic output.
The families benefited from their control of state companies, amassing private wealth as they embraced the market economy. Forty-three of the 103 ran their own business or became executives in private firms, according to Bloomberg data.
Wall Street
He Ping, who was chairman of Poly Group until 2010, held 22.9 million shares in the group’s Hong Kong-listed real estate unit, Poly Property Group Co. (119), as of April 29, 2008. Wang Xiaochao, the son-in-law of former President Yang Shangkun, another Immortal, owned about $32 million worth of shares in another property unit listed in Shanghai, Poly Real Estate Group Co. (600048), as of the end of June. Wang Jun owns 20 percent of a golf venture that counts Citic, the company he previously ran, as one of its main clients.
The third generation -- grandchildren of the Eight Immortals and their spouses, many of whom are in their 30s and 40s -- have parlayed family connections and overseas education into jobs in the private sector. At least 11 of the 31 members of that generation tracked by Bloomberg News ran their own businesses or held executive posts, most commonly in finance and technology.
Some were hired by Wall Street banks, including Citigroup Inc. (C) and Morgan Stanley. (MS) At least six worked for private equity and venture capital firms, which sometimes recruit princelings with the intention of using their connections for winning business.
Resentment Rises
“The Chinese Communist Party, pretty much led by these eight people, established their legitimacy as rulers of China because they were stronger and tougher than the other guys,” said Barry Naughton, a professor of Chinese economy at the University of California, San Diego. “And now they’re losing it, because they haven’t been able to control their own greed and selfishness.”
China’s rich-poor divide is one of the widest in the world -- 50 percent above a level analysts use to predict potential unrest, according to a Chinese central bank-backed survey published this month. Protests, riots and other disturbances, often linked to local corruption and environmental degradation, doubled in five years to almost 500 a day in 2010.
“Ordinary people in China are very aware of these princelings, and when they think about changing the country, they feel a sense of despair because of the power of such entrenched interest groups,” Naughton said.
Robber Barons
The lives of many of China’s 1.3 billion people have improved under state-controlled capitalism. Princelings such as Wang Jun have also played a central role in building the institutions that have underpinned these gains.
And some of China’s richest people didn’t need a famous bloodline to become wealthy. That includes self-made billionaires such as Liu Yonghao, chairman of animal-feed company New Hope Group Co., and Cheung Yan, one of China’s richest women as chairwoman of Nine Dragons Paper Holdings Ltd. (2689)
Also, it isn’t unusual for rapid economic change to be shared unequally. The robber barons of the 19th-century U.S. and the rise of Russia’s post-communist oligarchs are two other cases. In China, however, where leaders still espouse the ideals of Marx and Mao, there is resentment over unequal opportunity and the privilege of the elite.
China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, 59, is himself a princeling, as a descendant of a revolutionary fighter and vice premier. So are three other members of the newly installed seven-member ruling Politburo Standing Committee.
Princeling Peers
Xi’s extended family amassed a fortune, including investments in companies with total assets of $376 million and Hong Kong real estate worth $55.6 million, Bloomberg News reported June 29. Bloomberg’s website has been blocked in China since the publication of the story.
Even some of the Immortals’ descendants say they are concerned about what they call the greed of their princeling peers.
“My generation and the next generation made no contribution to China’s revolution, independence and liberation,” said Song Kehuang, 67, a businessman whose Immortal father, Song Renqiong, oversaw China’s northeastern provinces after the revolution in 1949. “Now, some people use their parents’ positions to scoop up hundreds of millions of yuan. Of course the public is angry. Their anger is justified.”
Bo’s Downfall
In addition, people are angry about corruption among public officials, who are seen as taking advantage of their positions. At least 10 local government officials “have fallen” in corruption and sex scandals since Xi took office last month, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Dec. 13.
High-level corruption snapped into focus this year when Bo Xilai -- son of Immortal Bo Yibo and a member of China’s ruling Politburo -- was ousted from the Communist Party and accused of taking bribes, after his wife was found guilty of murdering a British businessman. Unless corruption is stamped out, “it will ultimately and inevitably lead the party and the nation to perish!” Xi said last month, according to the People’s Daily, a Communist Party newspaper.
The foreign ministry in Beijing didn’t respond to questions sent by fax asking how the government plans to deal with the influence of the princelings and whether their actions are fueling public resentment.
“When the top is corrupt, this is how it will be all the way down,” said Dai Qing, an environmentalist who grew up with many of the princelings in Beijing after being adopted by a famous general. “We don’t have a free press. There’s no independent supervision to prevent it.”
Offshore Havens
State controls over the media and Internet limit what is written about the families, cloaking their business dealings from the view of ordinary Chinese. What can be found in public documents often remains obscured by the use of multiple names in Mandarin, Cantonese and English.
To document these identities and business interests, Bloomberg News scoured thousands of pages of corporate documents, property records and official websites, and conducted dozens of interviews -- from a golf course in southern China to the Deng family compound in Beijing to a suburban home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
At least 18 of the Immortals’ descendants own or run entities linked to companies registered offshore, including the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, as well as Liberia and other jurisdictions that offer secrecy, the reporting showed.
U.S. Attraction
While the Immortals vilified the “bourgeois individualism” of capitalist nations, almost half of their heirs lived, studied or worked abroad, some in Australia, England and France. The princelings were among the first to travel and study overseas, giving them an advantage not available to ordinary Chinese.
The U.S., which established diplomatic ties with Communist China in 1979, was the top destination: At least 23 of the Immortals’ descendants and their spouses studied there, including three at Harvard University and four at Stanford University, according to the Bloomberg data. At least 18 worked for U.S. entities, including American International Group Inc. (AIG) and the law firm White & Case LLP, which hired one of Deng’s grandsons. Twelve owned property in the U.S.
There is no accepted measure for the degree of control the princelings exert on the economy. Academics who study China estimate that wealth and influence is concentrated in the hands of as few as 14 and as many as several hundred families.
Family Control
“There were four families under Chiang Kai-shek; now we have 44,” said Roderick MacFarquhar, a Harvard historian who studies elite Chinese politics, referring to the Nationalist leader who lost to Mao. “To change the system will demand some traumatic national experience, when people say, ‘enough is enough.’”
The people generally known as the Eight Immortals are now all dead, though all but three lived into their 90s. Their stature in China is on a par with that of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in the U.S. They are:
-- Deng;
-- General Wang, who fed Mao’s troops;
-- Chen Yun, who took charge of the economy when Mao assumed power in 1949;
-- Li Xiannian, who was instrumental in the plot that ended the Cultural Revolution;
-- Peng Zhen, who helped rebuild China’s legal system in the 1980s;
-- Song Renqiong, the Party personnel chief who oversaw the rehabilitation of purged cadres after the Cultural Revolution;
-- President Yang, who backed Deng’s order to carry out the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown;
-- Bo Yibo, a former vice premier and the last of the Immortals to die, at 98, in 2007.
They emerged from the Cultural Revolution after Mao’s death in 1976, during which many of them had been in internal exile, to find an economy in ruins. Gross domestic product in 1978 was $165 a person, compared with $22,462 in the U.S. With Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong booming, the Immortals were surrounded by capitalist success stories.
The victorious Communists had executed landlords after 1949. Farms had become People’s Communes. Factories belonged to the state. The Immortals turned that on its head in the 1980s: Farmers could lease land. Private enterprise -- at first on a small scale, later bigger -- was tolerated, then encouraged. Deng took the gamble that in order to stoke growth, some “flies and mosquitoes” could be tolerated, said Ezra Vogel, an emeritus professor at Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wrote a 2011 biography of Deng.
------------------------------
Lying in a Beijing military hospital in 1990, General Wang Zhen told a visitor he felt betrayed. Decades after he risked his life fighting for an egalitarian utopia, the ideals he held as one of Communist China’s founding fathers were being undermined by the capitalist ways of his children -- business leaders in finance, aviation and computers.
“Turtle eggs,” he said to the visiting well-wisher, using a slang term for bastards. “I don’t acknowledge them as my sons.”
Two of the sons now are planning to turn a valley in northwestern China where their father once saved Mao Zedong’s army from starvation into a $1.6 billion tourist attraction. The resort in Nanniwan would have a revolution-era theme and tourist-friendly versions of the cave homes in which cadres once sheltered from the cold.
One son behind the project, Wang Jun, helped build two of the country’s biggest state-owned empires: Citic (6030) Group Corp., the state-run investment behemoth that was the first company to sell bonds abroad since the revolution; and China Poly Group Corp., once an arm of the military, that sold weapons and drilled for oil in Africa.
Today, the 71-year-old Wang Jun is considered the godfather of golf in China. He’s also chairman of a Hong Kong-listed company that jointly controls a pawnshop operator and of a firm providing back-office technology services to Chinese police, customs and banks.
His Australia-educated daughter, Jingjing, gives her home address in business filings as a $7 million Hong Kong apartment partly owned by Citic. Her daughter, 21-year-old Clare, details her life on social media, from the Swiss boarding school she attended to business-class airport lounges. Her “look of the day” posted on Aug. 24 featured pictures of a Lady Dior (CDI) handbag, gold-studded Valentino shoes and an Alexander McQueen bracelet. Those accessories would cost about $5,000, more than half a year’s wages for the average Beijing worker.
The family’s wealth traces back to a gamble taken by General Wang and a group of battle-hardened revolutionaries, who are revered in China as the “Eight Immortals.” Backing Deng Xiaoping two years after Mao’s death in 1976, they wagered that opening China to the outside world would raise living standards, while avoiding social upheaval that would threaten the Communist Party’s grip on power.
New Class
In three decades, they and their successors lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty and created a home-owning middle class as China rose to become the world’s second-biggest economy. Chinese on average now eat six times more meat than they did in 1976, and 100 million people have traded in their bicycles for automobiles.
The Immortals also sowed the seeds of one of the biggest challenges to the Party’s authority. They entrusted some of the key assets of the state to their children, many of whom became wealthy. It was the beginning of a new elite class, now known as princelings. This is fueling public anger over unequal accumulation of wealth, unfair access to opportunity and exploitation of privilege -- all at odds with the original aims of the communist revolution.
Bloomberg's Full Special Report: Revolution to Riches
To reveal the scale and origins of this red aristocracy, Bloomberg News traced the fortunes of 103 people, the Immortals’ direct descendants and their spouses. The result is a detailed look at one part of China’s elite and how its members reaped benefits from the country’s boom.
State Control
In the 1980s, they were chosen to run the new state conglomerates. In the 1990s, they tapped into real estate and the nation’s growing hunger for coal and steel. Today the Immortals’ grandchildren are players in private equity amid China’s integration into the global economy.
Twenty-six of the heirs ran or held top positions in state- owned companies that dominate the economy, data compiled by Bloomberg News show. Three children alone -- General Wang’s son, Wang Jun; Deng’s son-in-law, He Ping; and Chen Yuan, the son of Mao’s economic tsar -- headed or still run state-owned companies with combined assets of about $1.6 trillion in 2011. That is equivalent to more than a fifth of China’s annual economic output.
The families benefited from their control of state companies, amassing private wealth as they embraced the market economy. Forty-three of the 103 ran their own business or became executives in private firms, according to Bloomberg data.
Wall Street
He Ping, who was chairman of Poly Group until 2010, held 22.9 million shares in the group’s Hong Kong-listed real estate unit, Poly Property Group Co. (119), as of April 29, 2008. Wang Xiaochao, the son-in-law of former President Yang Shangkun, another Immortal, owned about $32 million worth of shares in another property unit listed in Shanghai, Poly Real Estate Group Co. (600048), as of the end of June. Wang Jun owns 20 percent of a golf venture that counts Citic, the company he previously ran, as one of its main clients.
The third generation -- grandchildren of the Eight Immortals and their spouses, many of whom are in their 30s and 40s -- have parlayed family connections and overseas education into jobs in the private sector. At least 11 of the 31 members of that generation tracked by Bloomberg News ran their own businesses or held executive posts, most commonly in finance and technology.
Some were hired by Wall Street banks, including Citigroup Inc. (C) and Morgan Stanley. (MS) At least six worked for private equity and venture capital firms, which sometimes recruit princelings with the intention of using their connections for winning business.
Resentment Rises
“The Chinese Communist Party, pretty much led by these eight people, established their legitimacy as rulers of China because they were stronger and tougher than the other guys,” said Barry Naughton, a professor of Chinese economy at the University of California, San Diego. “And now they’re losing it, because they haven’t been able to control their own greed and selfishness.”
China’s rich-poor divide is one of the widest in the world -- 50 percent above a level analysts use to predict potential unrest, according to a Chinese central bank-backed survey published this month. Protests, riots and other disturbances, often linked to local corruption and environmental degradation, doubled in five years to almost 500 a day in 2010.
“Ordinary people in China are very aware of these princelings, and when they think about changing the country, they feel a sense of despair because of the power of such entrenched interest groups,” Naughton said.
Robber Barons
The lives of many of China’s 1.3 billion people have improved under state-controlled capitalism. Princelings such as Wang Jun have also played a central role in building the institutions that have underpinned these gains.
And some of China’s richest people didn’t need a famous bloodline to become wealthy. That includes self-made billionaires such as Liu Yonghao, chairman of animal-feed company New Hope Group Co., and Cheung Yan, one of China’s richest women as chairwoman of Nine Dragons Paper Holdings Ltd. (2689)
Also, it isn’t unusual for rapid economic change to be shared unequally. The robber barons of the 19th-century U.S. and the rise of Russia’s post-communist oligarchs are two other cases. In China, however, where leaders still espouse the ideals of Marx and Mao, there is resentment over unequal opportunity and the privilege of the elite.
China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, 59, is himself a princeling, as a descendant of a revolutionary fighter and vice premier. So are three other members of the newly installed seven-member ruling Politburo Standing Committee.
Princeling Peers
Xi’s extended family amassed a fortune, including investments in companies with total assets of $376 million and Hong Kong real estate worth $55.6 million, Bloomberg News reported June 29. Bloomberg’s website has been blocked in China since the publication of the story.
Even some of the Immortals’ descendants say they are concerned about what they call the greed of their princeling peers.
“My generation and the next generation made no contribution to China’s revolution, independence and liberation,” said Song Kehuang, 67, a businessman whose Immortal father, Song Renqiong, oversaw China’s northeastern provinces after the revolution in 1949. “Now, some people use their parents’ positions to scoop up hundreds of millions of yuan. Of course the public is angry. Their anger is justified.”
Bo’s Downfall
In addition, people are angry about corruption among public officials, who are seen as taking advantage of their positions. At least 10 local government officials “have fallen” in corruption and sex scandals since Xi took office last month, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Dec. 13.
High-level corruption snapped into focus this year when Bo Xilai -- son of Immortal Bo Yibo and a member of China’s ruling Politburo -- was ousted from the Communist Party and accused of taking bribes, after his wife was found guilty of murdering a British businessman. Unless corruption is stamped out, “it will ultimately and inevitably lead the party and the nation to perish!” Xi said last month, according to the People’s Daily, a Communist Party newspaper.
The foreign ministry in Beijing didn’t respond to questions sent by fax asking how the government plans to deal with the influence of the princelings and whether their actions are fueling public resentment.
“When the top is corrupt, this is how it will be all the way down,” said Dai Qing, an environmentalist who grew up with many of the princelings in Beijing after being adopted by a famous general. “We don’t have a free press. There’s no independent supervision to prevent it.”
Offshore Havens
State controls over the media and Internet limit what is written about the families, cloaking their business dealings from the view of ordinary Chinese. What can be found in public documents often remains obscured by the use of multiple names in Mandarin, Cantonese and English.
To document these identities and business interests, Bloomberg News scoured thousands of pages of corporate documents, property records and official websites, and conducted dozens of interviews -- from a golf course in southern China to the Deng family compound in Beijing to a suburban home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
At least 18 of the Immortals’ descendants own or run entities linked to companies registered offshore, including the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, as well as Liberia and other jurisdictions that offer secrecy, the reporting showed.
U.S. Attraction
While the Immortals vilified the “bourgeois individualism” of capitalist nations, almost half of their heirs lived, studied or worked abroad, some in Australia, England and France. The princelings were among the first to travel and study overseas, giving them an advantage not available to ordinary Chinese.
The U.S., which established diplomatic ties with Communist China in 1979, was the top destination: At least 23 of the Immortals’ descendants and their spouses studied there, including three at Harvard University and four at Stanford University, according to the Bloomberg data. At least 18 worked for U.S. entities, including American International Group Inc. (AIG) and the law firm White & Case LLP, which hired one of Deng’s grandsons. Twelve owned property in the U.S.
There is no accepted measure for the degree of control the princelings exert on the economy. Academics who study China estimate that wealth and influence is concentrated in the hands of as few as 14 and as many as several hundred families.
Family Control
“There were four families under Chiang Kai-shek; now we have 44,” said Roderick MacFarquhar, a Harvard historian who studies elite Chinese politics, referring to the Nationalist leader who lost to Mao. “To change the system will demand some traumatic national experience, when people say, ‘enough is enough.’”
The people generally known as the Eight Immortals are now all dead, though all but three lived into their 90s. Their stature in China is on a par with that of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in the U.S. They are:
-- Deng;
-- General Wang, who fed Mao’s troops;
-- Chen Yun, who took charge of the economy when Mao assumed power in 1949;
-- Li Xiannian, who was instrumental in the plot that ended the Cultural Revolution;
-- Peng Zhen, who helped rebuild China’s legal system in the 1980s;
-- Song Renqiong, the Party personnel chief who oversaw the rehabilitation of purged cadres after the Cultural Revolution;
-- President Yang, who backed Deng’s order to carry out the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown;
-- Bo Yibo, a former vice premier and the last of the Immortals to die, at 98, in 2007.
They emerged from the Cultural Revolution after Mao’s death in 1976, during which many of them had been in internal exile, to find an economy in ruins. Gross domestic product in 1978 was $165 a person, compared with $22,462 in the U.S. With Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong booming, the Immortals were surrounded by capitalist success stories.
The victorious Communists had executed landlords after 1949. Farms had become People’s Communes. Factories belonged to the state. The Immortals turned that on its head in the 1980s: Farmers could lease land. Private enterprise -- at first on a small scale, later bigger -- was tolerated, then encouraged. Deng took the gamble that in order to stoke growth, some “flies and mosquitoes” could be tolerated, said Ezra Vogel, an emeritus professor at Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wrote a 2011 biography of Deng.
Wednesday, 26 December 2012
UNISON marching for a future that works October 2012
UNISON Housing Association Branch and London Regional Banner are in the opening sequences. A great video of a great 2012 day.
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
The Art of Telling A Lie
Telling a lie is a .......
Sin for a child.
Fault for an adult.
An art for a lover.
A profession for a lawyer.
A requirement for a politician.
A Management tool for a Boss.
An accomplishment for a bachelor.
An excuse for a subordinate and
A Matter of Survival for a married man.
Christmas Sunshine Over Maeni Hirion
This stone circle is better known as the "Druids Circle" yet it was built a 1000 years before the Druids first came to the area with Iron Age invaders.
Sunday was only a few days after the winter solstice. You would imagine in the past that the midst of winter and the shortest day, would have been an important time of the year for those who built it.
It is a breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful site even if the wind whips red raw any skin you foolishly expose to the elements.
Check out the balanced and thoughtful (as ever) Jack of Kent post on the origins of Christmas here.
Nadolig Llawen everyone!
Monday, 24 December 2012
Why a Living Wage is not enough
Yet I think it falls on me to be a bit of a Bah! Humbug! Christmas misery guts on the issue.
While anything that increases the amount of money being put in the purses and pockets of the low paid should be welcomed, it will not get rid of the evil of low pay and poverty.
The Living Wage level is set right on the poverty line. There is no element for any saving. Nothing to put aside for being sick or for when you retire.
So if you do become ill while at work and there is no sickness pay you will go straight back into poverty and be dependent upon the taxpayer. The same thing will happen when you retire. With no company pension you will retire and die in poverty. Again, being dependent on the State.
What we need is a Living Wage “plus”. A Living Wage, a Living Sickness benefit and a Living Pension in the public and private sector. The best way to delivery this is by strong trade unions and binding national/sectorial pay agreements.
In the last depression in the 1930’s we had a Tory government introducing such “Wages boards”. Like their modern day counterparts, this was not so much any wish to get workers out of grinding poverty but unlike this lot, they realised that to get the country out of doldrums you had to increase demand. The best way of doing this is to increase the pay of the low paid who will spend any increase (and not give tax cuts to millionaires who will just save it).
A Living Wage in the public sector would (if it happens) be a huge advance but can only be a first step.
Why we should introduce votes at 16
I have for a long time been a supporter of votes at 16, and was recently passed an interesting document by the Votes at 16 Coalition which made a powerful case for putting the voting age in line with many of the other rights that people get at that age. I believe the positives outweigh any of the potential concerns, and that the concerns about lowering the voting age are largely exaggerated and
Sunday, 23 December 2012
Sectarianism, Miserablists and opposing Austerity
He selectively criticises the branch secretary for sending out an email to all staff warning them of attempts by the SWP and the SP to hijack their campaign to defend public services. However, he fails to mention or quote that part of the email that states the reason why it was sent out.
Which was due to the violence, abuse and thuggery shown by various outsiders in a “hate fuelled frenzy”. This and threats to patients safety is actively undermining the campaign and putting off potential supporters .
It's the old story of "rule or ruin" by "wreaking and splitting". Ordered by the so called democratic centralist leadership of the various ultra left sects (not by all their rank and file members) if they cannot get their own way.
This is not the way to oppose Austerity nor win anything.
Considering that my esteemed colleague publicly derides anyone who disagrees with him as a "poodle of the ruling classes" it is just hypocritical of him to criticise anyone else as being in any way sectarian.
I also note that the hard working and respected branch secretary he is having a go at started life as a porter in a hospital, who then put himself through night school to eventually become a fully qualified nurse. Who still works shifts as a nurse on the wards. Unlike the full time middle class bureaucrat who snipes at him from afar.
(ps I am also of course furious that anyone else apart from me should have been awarded “Sectarian of the Year” especially after my 2012 masterpiece Moanie fibbing miserabalists and the LGPS 2014)
Hat tip picture Rustbeltradical (and some interesting comments!)
UPDATE: I have been reminded how the Ultra left got up to similar tricks and destroyed any chance of forming a broad anti-austerity coalition in Local Government in 2011.
Food poverty in the UK is far too high
Food poverty in the UK is far too high – in 2012 this should not be the case. I am shocked on a daily basis at the rise in food banks, and the reports I hear from parents and teachers about the numbers of children who go to school hungry. As an indication of the scale of the problem, in 2011, the amount of food distributed by food charity FareShare contributed to more than 8.6 million meals,
Saturday, 22 December 2012
This & That
I am not much of a cookies fan but got a few presents, a couple of them came from Crabtree & Evelyn. I didn't know they made cookies!!! But they were more than excellent. I don't mind the calories cause they tasted soooo good. My favourite has to be Strawberries & Cream. Try them, they are absolutely divine.
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I was in HK recently, and although I smoke cigars, I don't really like cigarettes. But I chanced upon the display by Kent which bamboozled me. Obviously in addition to the cancerous lung pic, the rotting teeth and gums ... they now added this which says that smoking will make you age a lot faster.
What I thought was galling: how come ageing means being much darker; this would attract tremendous outrage in countries like America, Australia for sure ...
Only in HK or China can they get away with this. So politically incorrect. Funnily, when I showed this to a group of friends, the ladies ALL commented that the first thing that is NOT RIGHT about the picture was "WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE A WOMAN"????? ......
The growth in legal highs and the growing number of fatalities
This quick photo of an article in London's Metro last month highlights the problems found on East Lancashire's streets. The growing menace in the high street of legal highs now totalling some 57 types this year so far. Black Mamba particularly has had press coverage of people who have badly affected by it.
Significantly the number of deaths from legal highs rose between 2009 and 2010 from 5
Friday, 21 December 2012
An Official Scholarship Blog
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We also are a leading sponsor of scholarships, grants, and financial-aid for moms, single mothers, and women. For up-to-date sources of scholarships, grants, and financial-aid, please visit our Scholarship Blog at for players between the ages and 12 to 18 years old seeking scholarships, grants, or financial-aid for soccer. Over $1 million worth of sponsored scholarships.
An Official Scholarship Blog
Hyndburn businesses looking for export opportunities/UKTI help in the far east... read on
The APPG for Trade & Investment will be hosting a Trade Mission to Southeast Asia next year, due to depart Saturday 9th March and return on Saturday 16th March 2013.
The trip is kindly being sponsored by Barclays and Prudential, and is also being supported by UKTI, Asia House, the UK-ASEAN Business Council, and British Airways.
The APPG will be visiting Singapore and Indonesia with this
The perils of legal loan sharks - why we must act
As Christmas approaches, a large number of people will be looking for credit over the festive period. However I want to offer a Christmas warning about using payday loan companies – or what are commonly referred to as legal loan sharks.
Legal loan sharking risks putting people into a spiral of debt, with people having to take out other high-interest loans to pay off their existing ones. These
Legal loan sharking risks putting people into a spiral of debt, with people having to take out other high-interest loans to pay off their existing ones. These
Conditioning
Why Malaysian drivers drive like assholes?
Why Malaysians are inevitably late for anything and everything?
.................... (fill in your favourite grouses) ......
also applies to why people get married in the first place?
Ever wondered why Malaysian drivers drive like assholes??!! Surely we are not like that in real life, only when we get into a car that we become monsters. When we socialise we are totally different, very few of us actually have chips on our shoulders, get to know us or come to our house and we become the most gracious hosts on earth. If we go back to our small towns and kampungs, we are generally much much nicer. So how did we get to be so un-civic minded in many areas?
We speed up when we see pedestrians trying to cross the road, we speed up when cars want to cut into our lane .... Its not that we are inherently bad, I believe its conditioning. This can be explained with a most remarkable but true experimental project.
A group of researchers put 4 monkeys in a cage with a ladder in the middle with a bunch of bananas at the top of the ladder. Naturally the monkeys will try to climb the ladder, but every time one of the monkeys starts to climb the ladder there will be a couple of zookeepers with big hoses who will spray all 4 monkeys until the monkey that was doing the climbing stops climbing to come down. After a few minutes another brave monkey will try to climb the ladder again, and all of them get sprayed again.
Now this happened over and over again, and following the umpteenth time, every time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, the other 3 will claw and drag that climbing monkey from the ladder. Till none of the 4 monkeys will dare to climb that ladder.
Then they take one monkey out of the cage and introduce a new monkey. The new monkey will naturally climb up the ladder to try to get at the bananas, and it will be clawed and dragged back down before the hoses start. The more the new monkey tried, the more ferocious and nasty the other 3 will be to whack it down. Till the new monkey dare not climb anymore.
They then take out another of the original monkey and introduce another new one ... the same chain of events occur even though just 2 of the original monkeys know why they did not want to climb the ladder. They keep adding new monkeys and taking out the original ones till all 4 monkeys are new monkeys and yet they would be conditioned not to climb the ladder - but they don't know why really.
That is conditioning, how many things in life that we do are due to conditioning, and we ourselves don't really know the real reasons why we are doing it. In much the same way, plenty of expats after driving for a couple of years in Malaysia will end up driving like a Malaysian.
Civic sense can be ingrained, it can be taught, or we can be conditioned to do things a certain way ... only when we take a step back and reassess the reasons why we shouldn't be doing so, will we be able to rise from the pack.
Inherently most people do not behave badly but due to conditioning. If you lack self-awareness and do less self introspection which leads to more self actualisation ... we will just be among the running pack. It is precisely that that parents behaviour and instruction are so important to our kids.
We end up doing a lot of things because thats the way things were done ... we do not question enough why are doing it, should we continue to do it that way or should we change our attitude because they are inherently flawed.
I absolutely abhor the way some adults treat their maids. Can you imagine what the kids are learning from all that? Hopefully they have the character strength to re-learn only the good stuff and throw away the bad stuff, but that does not happen all the time.
In the same way that our government instill fear and divide us along religious and racial lines, thats conditioning. To break out of that mould, we have to keep drilling down on proper reasoning and on what is right and wrong. Life is so complicated and a bitch.
Why Malaysians are inevitably late for anything and everything?
.................... (fill in your favourite grouses) ......
also applies to why people get married in the first place?
Ever wondered why Malaysian drivers drive like assholes??!! Surely we are not like that in real life, only when we get into a car that we become monsters. When we socialise we are totally different, very few of us actually have chips on our shoulders, get to know us or come to our house and we become the most gracious hosts on earth. If we go back to our small towns and kampungs, we are generally much much nicer. So how did we get to be so un-civic minded in many areas?
We speed up when we see pedestrians trying to cross the road, we speed up when cars want to cut into our lane .... Its not that we are inherently bad, I believe its conditioning. This can be explained with a most remarkable but true experimental project.
A group of researchers put 4 monkeys in a cage with a ladder in the middle with a bunch of bananas at the top of the ladder. Naturally the monkeys will try to climb the ladder, but every time one of the monkeys starts to climb the ladder there will be a couple of zookeepers with big hoses who will spray all 4 monkeys until the monkey that was doing the climbing stops climbing to come down. After a few minutes another brave monkey will try to climb the ladder again, and all of them get sprayed again.
Now this happened over and over again, and following the umpteenth time, every time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, the other 3 will claw and drag that climbing monkey from the ladder. Till none of the 4 monkeys will dare to climb that ladder.
Then they take one monkey out of the cage and introduce a new monkey. The new monkey will naturally climb up the ladder to try to get at the bananas, and it will be clawed and dragged back down before the hoses start. The more the new monkey tried, the more ferocious and nasty the other 3 will be to whack it down. Till the new monkey dare not climb anymore.
They then take out another of the original monkey and introduce another new one ... the same chain of events occur even though just 2 of the original monkeys know why they did not want to climb the ladder. They keep adding new monkeys and taking out the original ones till all 4 monkeys are new monkeys and yet they would be conditioned not to climb the ladder - but they don't know why really.
That is conditioning, how many things in life that we do are due to conditioning, and we ourselves don't really know the real reasons why we are doing it. In much the same way, plenty of expats after driving for a couple of years in Malaysia will end up driving like a Malaysian.
Civic sense can be ingrained, it can be taught, or we can be conditioned to do things a certain way ... only when we take a step back and reassess the reasons why we shouldn't be doing so, will we be able to rise from the pack.
Inherently most people do not behave badly but due to conditioning. If you lack self-awareness and do less self introspection which leads to more self actualisation ... we will just be among the running pack. It is precisely that that parents behaviour and instruction are so important to our kids.
We end up doing a lot of things because thats the way things were done ... we do not question enough why are doing it, should we continue to do it that way or should we change our attitude because they are inherently flawed.
I absolutely abhor the way some adults treat their maids. Can you imagine what the kids are learning from all that? Hopefully they have the character strength to re-learn only the good stuff and throw away the bad stuff, but that does not happen all the time.
In the same way that our government instill fear and divide us along religious and racial lines, thats conditioning. To break out of that mould, we have to keep drilling down on proper reasoning and on what is right and wrong. Life is so complicated and a bitch.
Thursday, 20 December 2012
Walking in Charles Darwin's footsteps: Cudham & Downe
A really fantastic 8 mile, rolling up and down walk with glorious views.
You cannot believe that you are so close to central London and within the M25.
Highlight of the walk was a visit to Down House, which was the home for 40 years of Charles Darwin. He wrote here his famous "Origin of the Species by Natural Selection" in 1859. He use to enjoy walking in the countryside around his home while contemplating his theories.
Click on picture to bring up details. Get your boots out of the attic and do this lovely walk over crimbo. (update: more photos from walk posted here on facebook)
Fix "Death Trap" Factories in Bangladesh
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I posted on the "True Price of Cheap Fashion: 120 burnt or jumped to death at Bangladesh Textile Factory Fire" here on 1 December.
Following a recent London UNISON Pension network meeting I am drawing up questions that Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) member nominated trustees should be asking their fund advisers and managers about what they are doing to make sure that the companies we invest in do not pay dividends in blood money.
Ordinary UNISON members can also ask these questions of their schemes? I will post them as soon as I can.
Government go ahead to shale gas extraction
I have expressed on several occasions in the past that I have certain reservations about the merits of fracking for various environmental reasons. I am not blindly opposed to fracking, however it has always been a balancing act between whether we believe the benefits of cheaper gas will a) materialise and b) outweigh the physical downsides of the process.
I fully endorse the words of Caroline
Letter to the Free Press: Agapao International & international aid
I want to update people living in Haslingden about the efforts my office is taking to prevent the market disposal of the Mary Hindle Centre in Haslingden by Agapao International.
I’d like to thank Caroline Collins, Kate Crane, Tony Nixon, Peter Sweetmore, Christine Calhoun Bulling, Barry Payton, Paul Lydiate and all those whose concern over the Mary Hindle Centre led to a very a very
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Accrington Observer Column - Hyndburn's housing crises
With 2013 almost upon us I would like to wish all readers a merry Christmas and a peaceful new year. It’s a time when most of us can relax with our families and friends, reflect on the year and look forward to the following year.
For some though, Christmas is time of loneliness and isolation and I think we should all make that extra effort to share a moment of our time with our neighbours;
Electrical Safety Campaign to improve safety in the Private Rented Sector
I have been campaigning for improved electrical safety in the private rented sector. Currently landlords are not required to have electrical safety certificates unlike Gas where they are required to be certificated as safe.
The law does state that 'electrical installations are safe at the beginning of any tenancy' under the 1985 Housing and Tenant Act.
I have visited numerous properties where
The law does state that 'electrical installations are safe at the beginning of any tenancy' under the 1985 Housing and Tenant Act.
I have visited numerous properties where
Eastgate parking issue - National Motorists Action Group step in to help
NMAG looking to take a test case to civil court and shed light on the companies involved.
The National Motorists Action Group www.nmag.co.uk have approached my office and told me that they are prepared to look at
assisting those who have paid the fines (and are being refused a refund) on a pro-bono basis to seek justice and refunds for motorists
unfairly penalised at Eastgate Car Park (as yet it
The National Motorists Action Group www.nmag.co.uk have approached my office and told me that they are prepared to look at
assisting those who have paid the fines (and are being refused a refund) on a pro-bono basis to seek justice and refunds for motorists
unfairly penalised at Eastgate Car Park (as yet it
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Japan's Double Barrel Luck
The Japanese markets have been in the doldrums for the longest, no thanks to the silly yen strengthening phase following the financial crisis as investors somehow still think the yen is a safe haven. The Japanese market has two things going for them this time: the Federal Reserve move which basically tells all that rates will be very low and they will keep printing liquidity into the markets, which negates the need for some to still park money in yen as safe haven; the LDP election victory which propels the markets to a "regenerative phase".
Following is the latest strategy report by Bank America Merrill Lynch on Japan:
LDP victory brings our bullish scenario closer
With the LDP (294 seats) and Komeito (31 seats) combined (325 seats) now
controlling a more than two-thirds majority (320) of the Lower House, it now
appears more likely that the new Shinzo Abe administration will be able to
exercise strong leadership. Though an LDP victory was widely expected, what
has not been fully priced into the market is the degree to which the new
government will be able to put through its legislative program relatively
unhindered.
Consequently, Shinzo Abe will need to act quickly to implement the policies he
had set out before the election. Those measures we believe that have yet to be fully factored into the market are inflation targeting, and long-term fiscal
expansionary measures including corporation tax cuts and a raft of spending
measures included under the broad title of “national strengthening.”
As the new cabinet is being drawn up, the focus is now on how and in what order of priority the new administration will put through its policy program, including drawing up a supplementary budget, expanding public works spending, reducing the rate of corporation tax and exercising greater influence over the BoJ’s monetary policy. For instance, if the government moves quickly to put pressure on monetary policy, we can expect the yen to continue to weaken, but if this is put off until after the new BoJ Governor assumes his post (April 2013), then in the near term we could see the market looking to lock in profits. However, at least we can say that waiting for weakness to seek buy-in opportunities is unlikely to be a viable strategy for the time being.
Cut in corporation tax from 40% to 30% would raise ROE
A reduction in the corporation tax rate from around 40% to 30% would, we
calculate, raise TOPIX ROE from 7.8% (FY3/14 IBES consensus) to around 8.9%.
Schedule
The next BoJ monetary policy meeting is scheduled for 19-20 December, at
which additional easing is a possibility. At this point, the market is not expecting explicit inflation targeting to be adopted. On 26-27 December, Shinzo Abe should be officially appointed prime minister at a special Diet session, immediately after which the new cabinet will be announced. Abe has expressed his intention to visit the US in January, so we expect significant diplomatic activity including related to China. From end-January to February we expect a supplementary budget to be unveiled comprising a boost to Apr-Jun GDP and confirming a hike in the rate of consumption tax. In March, two new BoJ Deputy Governors will assume their posts, followed in April by the new BoJ Governor. We expect government and BoJ links to become even stronger, and an increasingly dovish bias in central bank policy.
When previously elected prime minister in 2006, Abe’s first visits were to China and South Korea to patch up relations that had previously worsened, and this time around we again expect him to take similar practical steps to deal with currently stained relations, though there is a risk of provocative statements being made.
However, if the cabinet line-up is decided in order to balance factional interests, then the policy program implementation may not be as speedy as the market is hoping. If the cabinet includes a large number of younger politicians, as per the current shadow cabinet, it would strengthen the hand of prime minister, and consequently increase the possibility of the policy program proceeding in line with Abe’s intentions as indicated in speeches etc to-date.
Eastgate parking update - A case of immoral business practices
Cllr Clare Pritchard, Cabinet Member for Town Centres, spoke today in response to a statement issued by Excel parking, the company responsible for issuing parking notices at Eastgate car park during the summer.
Excel have advised motorists who received a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) in respect of a parking contravention between 2nd June 2012 to 8th July 2012, that they will not be pursuing
Great Harwood Health Centre - Almost there!
Great Harwood Health Centre has reached the final stage.
A Full Business Case approval is expected from the Strategic Health Authority any day and I am told definitely before Christmas. Work on site would is expected to start by end of January 2013.
As MP this scheme has been a top priority. It is important the the northern towns, particularly Great Harwood have 21st century health care
Hyndburn's Labour Council - Woodnook Community Update | Dec. 2012
Your Labour Council continues to invest in Woodnook with further plans for wider neighbourhood investment.
The Labour Party is committed to Woodnook with a £multi-million refurbishment programme about to begin.
The Tories failed to do anything in 13 years in Woodnook.
Labour Counclllors and I expect that residents will be kept informed. Below is the second Council newsletter detailing
Monday, 17 December 2012
The role of trade unions in Europe
Take the UK for instance. The chancellor George Osborne announced at the Conservative Party conference this year that workers could gain shares within companies in exchange of valuable employment rights such as unfair dismissal, redundancy and the right to request flexible working and time off for training. A few pounds in shares is not worth works giving up hard won employment rights by won by our trade unions. If for example you received £2,000 in shares and they increased by 100% you would still only have £4,000 but could be sacked tomorrow.
The ideology of the Tory led government is to denigrate the trade unions as they regularly do in the House of Commons and make light of employment protections that workers are entitled to. The shocking thing is that companies will be able to force this on new recruits if they choose from April 2013, which is only a few months away.
My trade union, UNISON currently has a fantastic campaign about the living wage, which is an hourly rate set independently every year. It is calculated according to the cost of living and gives the minimum pay rate required for a worker to provide their family with the essentials of life. In London the 2012/2013 Greater London Authority rate is £8.55 per hour and outside of London the current rate is £7.45.
My trade union, UNISON currently has a fantastic campaign about the living wage, which is an hourly rate set independently every year. It is calculated according to the cost of living and gives the minimum pay rate required for a worker to provide their family with the essentials of life. In London the 2012/2013 Greater London Authority rate is £8.55 per hour and outside of London the current rate is £7.45.
This campaign by UNISON, spurred me to work with one of my fellow councillors at Barking and Dagenham council, Josie Channer, who is the chair of the living and working select committee to ensure that low paid council workers have been given the living wage.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is an organisation that has a united voice on behalf of the common interests of workers, at the European level. It represents 85 trade union organisations in 36 European countries. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) based in the UK is a member of the ETUC. The TUC is the voice of Britain at work with 54 affiliated unions (including my union UNISON), representing 6.2 million working people from all walks of life. They campaign for a fair deal at work and for social justice at home and abroad as well as negotiating in Europe.
It is important that the TUC continues to work alongside the ETUC to promote full employment, social protection, equal opportunities, good quality jobs, social inclusion, and an open and democratic policy-making process that involves citizens fully in the decisions that affect them across the European Union. It is only through workers’ consultation, collective bargaining, social dialogue and good working conditions that innovation, productivity, competitiveness and growth in Europe will thrive".
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is an organisation that has a united voice on behalf of the common interests of workers, at the European level. It represents 85 trade union organisations in 36 European countries. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) based in the UK is a member of the ETUC. The TUC is the voice of Britain at work with 54 affiliated unions (including my union UNISON), representing 6.2 million working people from all walks of life. They campaign for a fair deal at work and for social justice at home and abroad as well as negotiating in Europe.
It is important that the TUC continues to work alongside the ETUC to promote full employment, social protection, equal opportunities, good quality jobs, social inclusion, and an open and democratic policy-making process that involves citizens fully in the decisions that affect them across the European Union. It is only through workers’ consultation, collective bargaining, social dialogue and good working conditions that innovation, productivity, competitiveness and growth in Europe will thrive".
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