AhYap’s Blog

Sometimes (actually most of the time) what the Malaysian government really want is very confusing and contradicting to the people.

When the economy is not good, government use the magic pill called ‘interest rate’ to boost up the economy. By lowering interest rate, businesses can access to cheaper funds to expand their business and produce more goods/services. They will hire more people and thus create more jobs, expand production and thus increase purchases of raw materials, etc. Consumers are also tempted to borrow more money to spend, such as buying cars, house, Armani, etc. So the reason to reduce interest rate is to increase spending.

Government also setup emergency funds for SME to borrow and use. Reason? To increase spending.

EPF asks us to reduce contributions from 11% to 7% so we can have the extra money to spend and thus get the economy rolling.

I understand all these. But at the same time, government also ask us not to spend money. They say the economy is not good. They ask us not to go shopping, not to buy house, not to buy car. They ask us to keep all our money and spend nothing.

They even ask us not to buy vegetables but instead plant them ourselves. Ask us not to eat in mamak store but cook ourselves. They even suggest something call the ‘no spending day’ where we choose a day that whole Malaysian will not be spending.

Ahem…..

I am confused. Mr Government, what do you actually want me to do? To spend or not to spend?

When they ask us not to spend and give suggestions that we should plant vegetables ourselves and organize ‘no spending day’, you know that they come from politicians that can talk but don’t know what they are talking (ahem, they are leaders chosen by you).

Lets look at planting vegetables ourselves.

In KL, if you have land in your house to plant vegetables, I think you are the less affected by the economy downturn! Most people stay in condos, apartments and terrace house and where should they plant the vegetables? In the toilet bowl? Or on top of their proton saga?

Now look at the effect of ‘no spending’.

Everyone is not going to Mid Valley and mamak store and kopitiam. The management of Mid Valley and the CEO of the mamak store decided that since there will be no business, why do business? So they close shop. All staff no need to work and no salary is paid because their work is no longer required. Staff has no salary, business also not making money. Business don’t pay rent anymore. Premise owner also don’t have money to pay loan installment. The ex-staff also don’t have money to eat and feed their family! They spend their savings if they still have some. Factory also stop running because mid valley won’t buy their productions because no one is buying. Factory worker also lost their job. Factory are not buying new machine, machine seller also go out of business. Factory and Mid Valley are not using electricity, TNB also lose money. Everyone no money to eat, farmers also stop planting because their crops are left to rot because no one is buying. Borrowers don’t have money to pay housing loan and car loan. Loans start to default. Borrowers become bankrupt, bank loses money and don’t want to lend anymore… then parti keadilan blame BN for all these, Lim Kit Siang and Kapal Sigh blame Najib and Ong Kee Tiat for these, the Malay blame Chinese for all these, and the Chinese blame feng shui for all these…

Sorry to be too fat fetched. I just want you to know the chain reaction of not spending is very big. Even if the whole Malaysians stop spending for just 1 day, the effect can be very destructing.

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Although most of us didn’t go to business school. The economy can be understood by this simple metaphor. The whole economy is like our body. The money flowing is like our blood. Our blood need to circulate to do all the works of transporting oxygen to the body and carbon dioxide out of our body. The blood also contains white blood cells that protect us from ‘alien’, platelets that stop us from bleeding to death, etc. The blood play an important role to sustain the health of the body. All it needs to do is just to flow and flow and continue to flow. What happened when the blood stop flowing? The body dies. The same applies to economy (the body), the money (blood) flow decides the health/state of the economy (body)

Blood stop flowing = die.
Blood flowing too slow? tired, boredom = economy downturn/recession.
Blood flowing too fast? stress, high blood pressure, heart attack! = inflation, “hard landing”, unsustainable growth and economy collapsed.

interest rate = one of the magic pill to control how fast the blood flow. Higher = make it slower. Lower = make it faster.

Japan interest rate is almost zero. The magic pill don’t work in Japan. The Japanese themselves don’t spend money. Everyday is ‘no spending day’. The Japanese can only sell to non-Japanese so actually the non-Japanese are doing blood infusion to the Japan economy to sustain their life. Now the whole world does’t have enough blood and no longer be able to do blood infusion to Japan. That’s why Japan is the first country in the world to get into recession in this ‘crisis’.

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Leaders are meant to lead and teach people. Choose your leaders wisely.

Doctor say you should drink more milk to get more calcium so your bone can get stronger. All milk advertisements also say the same thing. You never doubt that. Anlene says 2 cups of anlene give you all the calcium you need in a day. By watching the TV ad every day you also think it is true, since no body ever tell you it is wrong. And newspaper also tell you it is true. Everyone (the blinds) is telling everyone else (the blinds) drink more milk for more calcium.

So as a good son or daughter you buy milk for your old mum to drink. Because you want to be ‘good’ to them, you force them to drink 2 cups of milk daily. She is also very happy because she got a good son that love her so much.

But what if I tell you instead of loving her you are actually trying to kill her?

Something that everyone else say is correct can be way wrong. And you have to always remember the story of Galileo, the man who said it is not the sun that circle around the earth but the earth that is circling around the sun. Everyone think he is way wrong at that time and even lock him up in his own house for his entire life.

That’s why I wrote a long post on be open minded and ready to investigate. A lot (almost all!) of things in this world that you think is right can be just way wrong. Remember Galileo, be open minded.

Why milk actually leak calcium out of your body instead of giving you the calcium?

There is no lie by the packaging of the milk that it indeed contain a lot of calcium in the milk. But unfortunately not only that the calcium will not be absorbed but it actually will leak more calcium that you originally have out of your body! That means the more milk you drink the more calcium will get out of your body! The more milk you drink, the more quicker you will get calcium deficiency and bone problem.

Did you brain just say, “No way!” ?

Why drinking milk leak calcium out of your body?

Because I want you to do the investigation yourself (using Google is enough), I will just explain it in a few short sentences. If that drive your curiosity, investigate on it and see if you will still let your mum drink milk.

Yes, milk contains calcium. But milk is also liquid protein that is called acid lactic. So milk is actually acidic! (gastric patients are asked to drink milk, which is also very foolish, I will explain in another post). When you drink too much milk, your body become acidic. But our body cannot tolerate acidic and cannot function well (and will even die) if it gets too acidic. But our body is a very intelligent machine that it will try to correct everything by its own. So when your body becomes too acidic, it starts to drain calcium (alkali) from your bone and teeth to neutralize your blood! Your body has choose to respond to the crisis by ‘borrowing’ calcium from your bone and teeth!

Skeptical? Investigate yourself.

THE MILK LETTER : A MESSAGE TO MY PATIENTS

It seems that the countries with the highest intake of dairy products are invariably the countries with the most osteoporosis.

For the key to the osteoporosis riddle, don’t look at calcium, look at protein. Consider these two contrasting groups. Eskimos have an exceptionally high protein intake estimated at 25 percent of total calories. They also have a high calcium intake at 2,500 mg/day. Their osteoporosis is among the worst in the world. The other instructive group are the Bantus of South Africa. They have a 12 percent protein diet, mostly p lant protein, and only 200 to 350 mg/day of calcium, about half our women’s intake. The women have virtually no osteoporosis despite bearing six or more children and nursing them for prolonged periods! When African women immigrate to the United States, do they develop osteoporosis? The answer is yes, but not quite are much as Caucasian or Asian women. Thus, there is a genetic difference that is modified by diet.

To answer the obvious question, “Well, where do you get your calcium?” The answer is: “From exactly the same place the cow gets the calcium, from green things that grow in the ground,” mainly from leafy vegetables. After all, elephants and rhinos develop their huge bones (after being weaned) by eating green leafy plants, so do horses. Carnivorous animals also do quite nicely without leafy plants. It seems that all of earth’s mammals do well if they live in harmony with their genetic programming and natural food. Only humans living an affluent life style have rampant osteoporosis.

Speechless.

CHANGE WE NEED!

Related:
Resurrection of Racism
Slaves to Racial Bondage
PKNS - Get the Best Person for the Job
Race and Islam

It looks like I am going to miss my target of writing 12 posts in a year. Wahahaha. I can’t even manage to write 1 post per month. BTW, if you google sohai, my sohai post is ranking as #1 now (sometimes #2). Thanks Google for its recognition to this meaningful word. Hopefully one day dictionary.com and wikipedia.com will also include the definition to their database.

Back to what I want to write today. What does the so-called ‘financial crisis’ means to you as an ordinary investor? What does the 50%+ fall of the whole world stock market (30% fall in October 2008 alone) means to you? Is my popular 20% compounded growth plan still relevant? Is my review on ICAP a rubbish? What about all the value investing posts that I have been writing?

Instead of answering them directly, let’s ponder some interesting facts that newspaper won’t be publishing and you won’t see them as headlines in NTV7 news.

What investing gurus are saying?

Gurus from all over the world are using almost the same word to describe the current crisis. It is not ’sad’, not ‘disappointing’, not ‘bad’, not ’scary’ but ‘exciting’! They are using the word exciting to describe the current stock market.

Ken Heebner a guru who compound more tan 20% per year for many years is actually buying bank stocks!

What did Seth Klarman, another great value investor said a few days ago (just before the market tank another 10% in a day)?

“Normally, as a buyer you have to compete with a lot of very, very smart competitors,” said Mr. Klarman. “But many of the smartest people are on the sidelines now because of redemptions, margin calls or panicked-out-of-their-mind selling. So you don’t have to be as smart as you did before. You just have to be in the game.” article link

What he said contains a lot of intelligence that you need to understand. Let me explain the whole concept in AhYap’s style.

Perspective #1 - What happened when you are forced to only sell and are not allowed to buy

I have condemned mutual funds many times but I have to do it again because now you will learn the most. Unlike ICAP, mutual fund is open ended. That means the fund size can increase and decrease depending on how many people willing to pour money into it or take money out of it. So a mutual fund as large as RM 100 million can shrink their size to RM10 million if the holder want to take the money out from it.

In normal days, mutual fund usually invest only 70-90% of their money and keep the remaining in cash. The prospectus will specify the percentage that need to be invested. Say a mutual fund that specify that they need 90% of money invested in the stock market all the time, they have to follow that and make sure 90% of money in the stock market, no matter if the stock market is overvalue or undervalue.

The problem is that when time of panic selling comes, 10% cash is not enough for redemption (the fund doesn’t have enough money to pay to his holders who sell the mutual fund). So where do they get the money to pay them? They have to sell stocks to get money in order to pay them. So when more and more and more people what to get out of mutual funds, the fund managers have no choice but to keep on selling their stocks no matter what is the price! The fund managers may think a stock is cheap at RM3 but are forced to sell it at RM1 because someone want to get out from the fund.

The ice ball roll bigger when more and more people want to get out of the mutual fund. The continue selling from the mutual fund creates a big SUPPLY but the DEMAND is very low. Everyone what to sell but no one what to buy! They ask for lower and lower price. Price tank. Market tank.

The fund manager might be very intelligent in investing. But he can’t do a shit even if he is as good as Warren Buffett. Because he has no choice! He can only be at the sideline watching. First he is forced to sell at cheaper price. Second he cannot buy anything that he think is cheap because he has no money to buy! Money flow out quickly from the fund and no new money flow into it.

When you are in mutual fund, you are partnering with many Ah Beng and Ahmad that you don’t know (maybe just live next door to you) and what they do affect your investment.

How have margin calls affected the stock market? Many people borrow money to buy stocks and use the stock they bought as collateral. Same thing as you borrow money to buy your house and use your house as collateral. Problem is when the value of the collateral drops to a certain value, they are required to either increase the collateral (pump in more money) or sell stocks to reduce the borrowings to the acceptable margin level, which is what we called ‘margin call’ [i.e. your broker call you and tell you that you don't have enough margin].

Unfortunately most people don’t have money to pump in! If they have the extra money, why would they need to borrow? So they have no choice but to sell no matter what is the price! The key phase that is same as the mutual funds, ’sell no matter what is the price!’.

This creates another surge is selling orders that crash the stock market. And mind you, it is not you and me the small little guy that have only RM23 in Maybank account that is margin called but the BIG guys that control billions of dollars! These guys run hedge fund (unregulated but leveraged mutual funds) that borrow a lot of money to invest! These guys are forced to sell because their collateral (stocks they bought) are no longer enough to cover their borrowings.

In short, the force selling of mutual funds and margin calls has create a big SUPPLY of stocks, contributing to a big fall to the stock market. Because they have to sell disregard of price, but the selling doesn’t have much relation with the underlying value of the stock.

Here comes the intelligent investor.

People who are not forced to sell or who have the courage to buy now has the advantage than those who choose to sell or stupid enough to buy mutual funds all the years. Unlike common mutual fund which is open-ended, ICAP is a closed-end fund. It doesn’t need to sell even a single stock even ICAP shareholders are dumping the share in the market. ICAP can keep anything that the fund manager thinks is cheap and at the same time can utilized the RM50 million cash it has to buy more shares that is selling at big discount. That means the next door Ah Beng who owns 1 million shares of ICAP and dump it crazily in the market yesterday until the market price drop to RM1.20 can’t do a shit to its real value (NAV - RM1.42).

For individual investor who has money right now, you also have the chance to grab stocks that are in big discount. Stock market are currently in 4-5 years low. That means in order to buy something at current price, the last chance is 4-5 years ago.

Perspective #2 - The Gap Between Price and Value

Price is what you pay and value is what you get. You can pay whatever price for anything but what you get is just the value. You can pay RM500 for a Mc Fillet O Fish but what you get is still a Mc Fillet O Fish (RM5.90).

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.”
– Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor

Warren Buffet explains what his teacher said a few weeks ago in CNBC.

“Well, the stock market in the short — my old boss Ben Graham said that in the short-run the stock market is a voting machine, in the long-run it’s a weighing machine. As a voting machine, it responds to people’s emotions. There’s no literacy test for voting. You vote according to how much money you have, not according to how smart you (are.) So the stock market does some very silly things in the short-run. Over the long-run, it behaves quite rationally. And, you know, five years from now, ten years from now, we’ll look back on this period and we’ll see that you could have made some extraordinary buys. That doesn’t mean it won’t get more extraordinary a week or a month from now. I have no idea what the stock market is going to do next month or six months from now. I do know that the American economy, over a period of time, will do very well, and people who own a piece of it will do well. But they shouldn’t own it on leverage. That’s what people have learned in this period, that you’ve got to be able to play out your hand and it’s a big mistake to let somebody else be in a position where they can sell you out.”

Why the gap between price and value will eventually closed? Why it is a “weighting machine” in the long run? Because the longer time goes by, the more OBVIOUS the fact that Mr. Market is mispricing a stock and eventually more and more people will noticed it, buy it and push up the price.

Mohnish Pabrai bought IPSCO for 3 times free cashflow (read my post on PE Ratio), a stock that Pabrai knows the market is mispricing. Since it is a voting machine in the short term, the price may remain low and even drop further for the short term. But what will happened after 3 years? The company would have generated cash that is more then it market capitalization! (market cap: the price the whole company is worth i.e no of shares x share price) That means you are exchanging RM1 for RM1 cash in that company PLUS the factories, inventories, future profits, management, employees, palm trees, Diamond water filter, toilet papers, CEO’s secretary, etc. ALL FOR FREE! At this time, even sohai can notice the value-price gap! It is so obvious.

Pabrai bought it at $45 and sold it for $155. And Pabrai said currently many of his stocks is trading at 1 times free cash flow. How long do you think he needs to wait before things get obvious for others?

Perspective #3 - How many McChicken will be sold in China and India?

Tan Teng Boo organized a seminar last year about his theory on ‘i Capital Long Boom’. After paying a few hundred bucks, you received a ’seminar’ book that look more like a nuclear bomb manual written in Russian. You listen to Uncle Tan speaks for numerous hours about facts and figures and looking at charts and data on the screen that you can never underestand. And yet, ironically, everyone get very excited!

Dump away all the statistics - the nickle comsumption per capita, the price of USD vs Nigeria Naira, the washing machine sold per household, stainless steel nuts and bolts consumption, etc etc etc … Why not just ask yourself a few questions.

How many Nike shoes do you think the China and India man will buy in the next 10, 15, 20 years?
(Hint: China has 1.3 billion people. India has 1.1 billion. India population will surpass China in 20+ years. US population is only 0.3 billion!)

How many chicken (real chicken ok) have to be fried by KFC in the next 10, 15, 20 years?

How many condoms are required by China and India man to make sure they don’t have too many ‘liabilities’?

How many toilet paper do they need? Toothpaste? Hand phones, computer chips, rubber bands, Diamond/Nesh water filter, Crocodile underwear, etc etc etc.

It is mind boggling. The China, India and all other Asian countries will play a big role in the world economies in the future. Tan Teng Boo describe it as something that happened once in a millennium.

Perspective #4 - When Price Drops, It Gets Less Risky, Not More Risky!

Given that you have done a thorough analysis on a stock and you bought it a discount, the stock will not get riskier when the price fall! For example, Mohnish did a research on IPSCO, a cyclical steel company. His analysis read like this -

Continue Reading »

AhYap is confirmed a dai sohai for being conned gao gao not once but twice from the same men. This proves again that AhYap is only good at talking cock theory but fail to implement them practically. If you are a follower of my blog, you would have read my post on the immobilizer conman and thought that I am very smart. Unfortunately, I have to admit that, “Book smart is not street smart.” [To know how book smart I am, I have at least 10 books highly relavant to conning tactics and its psychologies]

Time: Saturday evening
Place: My House @ Ipoh

My friend and I was at my garden and suddenly 4 Indians driving a blue van stopped in front of my house. That was scary because I really wonder if they are bad guys! Then 1 of them came down, point to my grass and start talking about my grass. He told me the name of my grass, different types of grasses, problems with my grass, etc. etc.  Then he said that he work as the gardener for a golf course for 25 years and he do gardening for people at part time. He knows what he speaks. He talk for a very long time outside the gate until at one moment he requested to come in to explain in more details the ‘problem’ of my grass. [I Broke Rule #1 - Never let stranger come into your house]

As precaution I only let him in and have others waited outside. He pointed to some yellow patch of the grass and some holes and told me that there are ‘worms’ eating the root below and digging the hole up. The hole indeed look like being dug by some insects, and I have also heard of such worm that eat the roots of grass. So I didn’t doubt about that. But till now, I still don’t expect myself to pay him anything.

He then started to promote 2 products. The first one is bat’s shit. Yep, the fertilizer made with the shit of Batman by Joker and Two Face. Actually I google it and find out that the correct term is bat guano. It is indeed a very expensive type of fertilizer that is high in phosphorus which is good for roots growing (Nitrogen is good for leaves, Potassium is good for flowers).

The 2nd product is a ‘liquid’ that he said his golf course imported overseas specially for use in their golf course. Until now I also don’t know its real purpose. Something like preventing the grass to grow tall but make them grow to the side, thus making your grass more ‘carpet’ and at the same time killing the weeds because they no longer can ’stand up’. I have never heard of such product but I am very curious on it.

This Indian guy is very skillful in talking. He can speaks Indian, English, Malay and Hokkien! (I don’t know Hokkien!) And he knows almost everything about plants and gardening. He talked for a very long time and the goal of the whole process is to convince me that he is ‘genuine’ and ‘trustable’.

How he broke pattern (breaking pattern in NLP means make someone suddenly dumb and stupid and can’t think normally like he did before. For example if you are talking very excited about something to your friend and suddenly he asked you a question that is totally unrelated, your thought pattern was broken and you respond by asking, “WHAT?!” and then you forget until where you talk until just now) -

He told me that you can’t buy this craps (bat craps) anywhere else because he ’steal’ it out from his gold course! The greed in me kicks in. And I didn’t doubt this fact at all. He said he had to steal a little bit a day from the golf course (including the ‘liquid’) so no one notice. He say he wants to cari makan a bit.

He keeps talking and talking (for a very long time) to convince me to put those shits and urine (the ‘liquid’ lar) to my grass. So I asked about the price and he said the urine cost RM95 per bottle and the shit cost RM65 per packet. Sounds expensive to me. So I didn’t agreed.

He kept on talking and talking. He asked his teammates outside to bring in sample of the liquid which is filled up in old 7up and Sarsi bottles! And he showed me some of the bat shit and let me touch it. He is trying very hard to convince me. I later asked him how many bags and bottles I need. He said 3 bottles and 3 packs is more than enough.

You see, I indeed love my grass very much and if the products can really deliver what it promised, I am willing to pay. My parents said this is the reason I fall for it - I can afford the money.

2nd event that break my pattern came in. My friend wanted to say bye bye and leave my house, so I opened the gate for him and then the Indian guy immediately order all his friends to come in and bring in all the urines and shits. He opened up the shit and ask me to see (see shit!). Then what he did is too surprising for me. He started pouring the bat shit to my lawn. I thought he was just giving me a demo on a small area but hell not, he is pouring a lot! Then he instructed his partners to continue pouring the shit while asking another one to spray the liquid to my glass.

Since my pattern was broken, I thought I can afford a try of that since it is around RM400 for 3 bottles of 7up and 3 packs of shit. So I didn’t stop them but let them finished.

It was scary. They keep pouring and pouring and pouring until my whole lawn is full of black shit. Fortunately they are not ’smelly’ like fertilizer made with chicken shit. End up they have used 5 bottles of liquid and 6 packs of shits!!!

This is a very common sales technique. If you tell somebody in advance the whole thing will cost RM815, they won’t want the deal, but if you tell them one pack is RM65 and mostly you will need 3 packs, they have higher chances of agreeing, which is my case! The problem is that they will quietly add up the number of packs without asking you and when you know about it, it is too late. Shit is already on the floor! It is very hard to argue, unless you know it is really a con case and reject it. But I don’t know yet!

[In Ipoh got a very popular Hakka mee store. They use this tactic to ALL their customers. When you order the fishballs and fu-pei, you might say, "I want 20 mix mix." Then come a big bowl of fish balls and fu-pei and you eat happily with your family. After you finished and you wanted to pay, they charge you very expensive and you ask, "WTF! How much is your fishball and your fu-pei, I only order 20!" And then he will answer, "Oh, we give you 30 fishballs and fu-pei mar, that's why." @*&$$%(% How do you argue? Fishballs are already in your stomach! Pay lor.]

He is so good. He put all the empty bags and bottles on the floor and asked me to calculate how much to pay him! This is funny, now I feel like what he is saying is, “Now I want to cheat you, you calculate how much you should let me cheat. Since you calculate it yourself, that means you agree to be cheated by me. I didn’t force you at all.”

So I calculated with my Sony Ericsson and the amount is scary, RM815 (double the RM400 I expected). He said RM800 is OK, RM15 no need to count. He also promised me that tomorrow he will bring me a lot of nice pebbles to put beside my plants and bring me ‘uri powder’ (powder made from urine?) for FREE! [actually he means he will steal the pebbles and uri powder for me] The powder according to him is used to prevent grasshoppers and other insects eating the leaves of the plants.

So I try to act smart and wanna fished him back to make sure he will come back tomorrow to give me those stuffs (greed again!). What I don’t know is I am actually trying to fish this shark back to bite me again tomorrow. I gave them only RM700 and ask them to collect the RM100 tomorrow after they bring me the pebbles and uri powder. (greed! greed! greed!) Sometimes when you think you are acting very smart, you are actually acting very stupid. That’s me.

Although I have paid them RM700, I felt quite happy with the shits and is eagerly waiting for my lawn to turn green and nice. (I love my lawn a lot, my girl friend sometimes said I love my lawn more than I love her) It is always easier to sell someone things that they want and need, like selling weight loss program to women, selling Yunnan hair care to Yap Kim Hock and other bald mans, selling ‘healing’ pills to cancer patient, etc.

At night I told my parents my story of the “encounters of the 4 Indians”. As expected, parents always worried that their children get conned. So they said things like, “Where got shit that is so expensive!”, “You trusted people too easily already lor”, blar blar blar. And that make me very angry because they still talk to me like a kid and THIS, drive up my ego and I want to proof that I am right.

I also googled for bat shit at night from the internet and notice that the price is indeed very expensive! 1 kilo cost around RM40 to RM50! So the little-greedy man feel very proud of himself on the day. But I can’t find anything about the liquid because I don’t even know the name of it.

— — — — —

Time: Sunday evening
Place: My Same House @ Ipoh, now with bat shits.

They came back!

Continue Reading »

[Since AhYap.com is a weird blog, I choose to write about electricity while everyone is writing about petrol, haha.]

When I look at Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) business model, I think it is a joke. However, many people including all those ‘experts’ in newspaper think that Tenaga Nasional is a very good stock because it has a monopoly on the electricity supply of Malaysia. All houses and businesses in Malaysia must pay TNB to get their electric, to watch Astro, refrigerate their watermelon and surf porn online. They also say it is a very good business because TNB income is very ’stable’ and so you can also expect to receive ’stable’ dividends.

But listen carefully, a monopoly business doesn’t mean it is a great business. And ’stable’ income doesn’t equal to ’stable’ dividends.

The biggest problem with TNB is that they simply control the price of their goods (electricity)! Even if their cost jump up a lot, they still can’t adjust their tariff (until yesterday). What is the meaning of monopoly when you can’t even control the price of your product! When you can’t control the selling price of your product but at the same time the cost of your product keep increasing, you will make less money or even lose money!

At this case, the monopoly end up hurting itself. What is benefit of your monopoly when you have to sell something fixed at RM100 while you produce it at RM150! And because you monopoly, you become compulsory to lose that RM50 no matter what. And the more customers you have, the more money you are compulsory to lose!

Do you think it is funny if your business look like that? Do you want to own such businesses? How do you expect to receive ’stable’ dividends when you have ’stable’ loses! Businesses can’t pay you good dividends when they are actually burning money, instead of generating money.

[The above examples are over-exaggerated by AhYap for Drama Effect, TNB is still able to cover their cost and make some money, but not a lot of money. They are also paying dividends, but not a lot of dividends. And with such business model, I don't think they can make good money and pay good dividends in the future even after the rate hike.]

It becomes more ridiculous when you realized that TNB runs on a business model that punish big customers! I don’t know what other businesses would do that and I really can’t accept that as an investor and a consumer. When you use less electricity, you pay lower tariff. The more you use, the higher the tariff would go! That would means if you buy 1 burger from McDonald, they charge you RM3, if you buy 2, they have to charge you RM10! WTF.

Businesses are meant to make money. Businesses like TNB is a ridiculous business because it didn’t reward their customers that use more! And end up investors don’t make much money from owning this stupid business.

It is almost guaranteed that if you spend more in a shop or buy more of a same products, the shop will happily give you discounts! That’s the correct way to do business, to motivate their customer to spend more so they can make more money. The customer is happy to get the discount and the business owner (and the investor) is happy to make more money. It is a win-win situation.

If you buy a box of Durex with 12 condoms in it, you expect each unit to cost less than the 3 condom pack! They motivate you to buy more (and fuck more), so you get more discount and enjoyment while they make more money. Same applies to Head and Shoulder shampoos, Whisper pads, Jack n Jill potato chips, Scottex toilet paper, Renoma underwear and almost everything else. The bigger pack you buy, the cheaper the averaged cost per unit.

If you go to popular restaurants like McDonald, KFC, PizzaHut, Starbucks, etc. All add ons are always cheaper than your initial purchase. McDonald sells 1 banana pie for RM2 and 2 pies for RM3! Starbucks large coffee is double the size of the small but cost only RM 2 extra! PizzaHut lets you add-on a salad bowl for only RM1 (normal price RM6) when you already order main course. [Damn it, suddenly I realized I eat a lot of junk food.]

Usually if you buy cloths over certain amount, say RM200, you will automatically get say 10% discounts. They are motivating you to spend more so they can make more money. Some shops will give you free gifts (actually sample/trial packs as bait to fish you for buying more in the future). Even if they don’t give you discount, they might give you a cool paper bag to wrap your goods instead of plastic bag so you look more cool when walking around the shopping complex.

Credit card companies motivate you to spend more by giving your bonus points to redeem for gifts! And they even motivate you to owe more money by offering you lower interest rate the more you owe them. So they can make more interest income from you. Even lousy companies like Malaysia Airlines (MAS) offer Enrich Miles to let their customers earn free flights. The more your fly, the more free flights you can redeem. And you got more Enrich Miles if you fly first class or business class (so they can charge you more on those seats). We also have Bonus Link card, Real Rewards card, Jusco Card and even Sen Heng card! The more you spend, the more gift/discounts you get.

Service industries motivate you to buy more by offering you bulk packages. Your averaged cost of signing up a 12 sessions slimming treatment at Terimee is cheaper than you sign up for 3. Your averaged cost of signing up a life time membership with California Fitness is cheaper than a 1 year membership. Even the QQ Express Cut at Mid Valley gives me a stamping cut that gives me 1 free cut for every 6 cut, so you earn an extra idiot look hair cut after they make you look like a sohai for 6 times! Many food restaurants like Coffee Bean are giving away loyalty cards that earn 1 stamp for each visit. And you can redeem free drinks/food after certain amount of visits.

It is very clear that businesses should always reward customers that spend more and customers that are loyal. But what does TNB do? They punish them! The more electric you use, the more expensive you need to pay. This is stupid.

I understand the reason behind this ‘ridiculous’ tariff structure is because the government wants us to spend less on electricity to save on energy. If that is the case, TNB can be considered as a good government entity or an environment friendly company BUT DEFINITELY not a good business/investment.

As a consumer, I want cheaper goods if I spend more. As an investor, I want a company that will motivate their customers to spend more so it can make more money for me. Thus, as a consumer and an investor, I think TNB-sucks-damn-a-lot.

There are many perspectives to look at businesses and this is one of the very rare one. I don’t expect you to read it in newspaper. I end my post with our new electricity tariff for you to enjoy.

After reading 20+ books on stock investing, I still don’t know how to analyst a company! And to finish reading those books, it took me a whole year. So many books, so much time, yet so little gained.

Everything that I have learned can be summarized into 1 sentence, “Buy wonderful businesses at discounted price.” That’s the whole strategy of value investing. That’s what those books trying to tell me.

The biggest gain from reading those books is actually to realize that it is impossible to do it myself. It is impossible for me to read 10 years annual reports for just a single company to find out if it is a wonderful business. It is very boring for me to dig deep into the income statements and balance sheets to calculate the intrinsic value of the company so I can figure out if it is selling at a discount.

The problem is not that we don’t spend enough time and effort on it! The problem is that investing is an art and not an exact science. The sentence, “Buy wonderful businesses at discounted price” make a lot of sense, but implementing it is a very very tough job. It is like you also know your should not get angry easily but you rant all the time when are you inside your car and press your car horn just because the car in front didn’t move after 0.01 second after the light goes green. You know it, but it is hard to be done. You also know that you should exercise more to get healthy but when it is time to go exercise, you say “tomorrow lar, today very tired”. You know it, but it is hard to be done.

What are wonderful businesses? What price is undervalue and what price is overvalue?

I don’t mind spending time reading 10 annual reports for a company if after that I can figure out if it is a wonderful business. I also don’t mind spending 10 hours reading all income statements and balance sheet if I can figure out its intrinsic value.

But it didn’t work like that! After reading 10 annual reports doesn’t mean you will know if it is wonderful. Spending 10 hours to get an ‘intrinsic value’ doesn’t mean it is an accurate one and you can make money from it! There is no guarantee that the effort and time you put in will give you the results you want, because deciding whether a company is wonderful and finding its intrinsic value is an ART and not a SCIENCE!

10 different guys reading the same 10 annual reports can come out with 10 totally different conclusions on whether it is a good company or a bad company. 100 different guys trying to calculate its intrinsic value and they can get 100 different answers. There is no exact answer! You will only know who is right and wrong after years has passed and the future performance of the company and its stock price becomes history.

The best you can do about the future is to predict it. Prediction is an art!

I love money. But I am not really passionate about stocks. I just love its compounding power, but I feel boring reading annual reports and income statements. It is simply not my cup of tea! I have a lot of other interests, passions and hobbies. I am interested in learning and doing a lot of things but I really don’t want to be an investing guru (or a politician)! I am passionate about heath, I am passionate about my spiritual practice, I am passionate on talking cock, but I am not really passionate on picking stocks!

If you look at all investor gurus, there are very passionate in investing. They spend their entire life in investing, although they say they are long term investor and they can buy a stock and hold it for 10 years without looking at it, they NEVER DO THAT! They still look at the stock market everyday, they just don’t buy and sell everyday, but they still look and still do a lot buy and sell within a year! Because it is their passion, their life. They can’t live without looking at stocks. Also, it is their job and career because they make money by investing for others.

But it is definitely not my passion. It is also not my job and my career. I feel stressed with stock. The less I look at it, the more happy I am. So, why spend so much time on it? But I realized that the best way to compound my money is to use stocks! So what should I do?

“To be happy, you need to find someone who loves to do what you hate to do, and can do it a lot better than you.”

This is the key concept of this post, and the key strategy of how I compound my money, how I do my stock investing.

Instead of going to research and pick my own stocks, I actually went to research and pick my own fund managers! I want to find someone that is good at doing what I hate to do!

4 of my favorite investors are Warren Buffet, Mohnish Pabrai, Peter Lynch and Tan Teng Boo. Every value investor loves Warren Buffet. He is the richest man in the world now after compounding for 50 years!

I like Mohnish Pabrai because he has proved that low risk high return value investing works! He started his investing business in 1999 which is quickly followed by the dot com bubble. And yet, not only that he is not affected by the market downfall but he actually deliver an outstanding performance where he manage to obtain 28% compounded return until today! If you study him and look at his strategy, he is so conservative with his investment, making his invertors able to sleep soundly at night.

The chart below shows the severity of the dot com bubble where the NASDAQ Stock Market has plunged sharply from the peak of 5,000 points in the end of 1999 to only 1,100 points in the end of 2002! That means if you have $5,000 at the peak, you are left with $1,100 after ‘negative compounding’ for 3 years. And yet, Mohnish Pabrai, a strict value investor, made 28% compounded return from 1999 until today!

Peter Lynch is the best mutual fund manager in the world. Yep, I condemn mutual fund a lot but Peter Lynch is actually one of the very rare distinct fund manager out there. While owning lots of stocks in his mutual fund, he achieved an outstanding 29.2% compounded return for 13 years! What he did is simple, “Buying wonderful businesses at discounted price”. But different than other gurus, he made it by buying hundreds of wonderful businesses. For comparison, Warren Buffet, the richest investor and richest man in the world, only owns around 60 stocks.

You should have heard of Tan Teng Boo if you have read about my ICAP post. He is one of the best brains in Malaysia which luckily our lousy government haven’t exported to Singapore. I have seen him spoke a few times. The first time is already 4 years ago when I attended a seminar organized by him. When it comes to money, you won’t be confidence with a person by just someone ‘recommend’ him to you, like what I am doing right now. You must listen to him speak yourself. Listen to how he answers the questions throw to him. There are many videos of his interview in his website here. Watch yourself.

I decided not to invest with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Harthaway because I know it is very hard to invest billions of cash and get spectacular returns. Warren Buffets has been compounding his money for 50 years until he becomes the richest man in the world, how big more can he be?

I like Mohnish Pabrai. But to invest with him you need $2 million USD. “*_* So you know why I didn’t invest with him.

I like Peter Lynch. But he is retired now.

There are just too many reasons why Tan Teng Boo is the best person for me to outsource my investing. The man that loves what I hate to do and can even do it better than me! I found my ’slave’! [I think investing is painful so doing investing job everyday look like a salve to me, but he enjoys it, so let him be. keke]

1. He is so near. A Malaysian who just live in KL. A real person that you can touch (hand & shoulder only, not butt). A real person that you can see with your own eyes (not TV or picture only). Someone who also know who is Adbullah Badawi and Hishammuddin.

2. He has a newsletter published weekly so you know what he thinks every week. And his newsletter has several paper portfolio where you can mimic his buy and sells!

3. He is the fund manager of the only closed-end fund listed in KLSE! You can let him invest for you as low as RM2.17 per share right now! [not USD 2 million]

So why do it yourself when someone can do it better for you?

I prefer to have more time myself doing things I like.

I buy my first batch of ICAP in February 2007 at RM1.54. At that time I have only read a few books on investing (not 20 yet), confidence on value investing is still very very weak. And I am also doubtful to Tan Teng Boo. Within 2 weeks, the whole market suddenly crashed when the Shanghai market fell 9% in 1 day. Being one of the panic chicken, I sold it for RM1.48 and lost money! I started scolding Tan Teng Boo as a cibai. Look at the ICAP chart below, you will see a sharp fall end of February 2007.

I can say all value investing books will have this quote by Warren Buffet.

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”

Somehow, I remembered that later. And I actually started to buy back ICAP after the crash. I buy gradually for the next few months. In June, I become very confident and sold all my mutual funds and convert all proceeds to ICAP. The highest price I ever pay for ICAP is RM1.70. My averaged purchase price is RM1.55. I hold just 1 single stock and nothing else for a long time. No mutual funds, no blue chips, no Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020.

Lets look at 2 of the mutual funds I sold in June (I also sold my ASW2020 to my father, haha).

ING Global Real Estate Fund - Bought this in September 2006 after I failed to buy any ASW2020 after queuing for 2 hours at Maybank. So I immediately walk to Hong Leong bank to buy this fund. Bought price is RM0.5103. Today’s price RM0.3999. Investment return based on NAV if I hold it until today is -22%! But because it does pay dividends all the time, the return will be slightly better but I take note that I need to pay around 5% commission when I buy. So does buy and hold really works? Do mutual funds work?

Public Global Select Fund - Bought this on its launching period in September 2006 too. Commission is 6% with 1% free units, so net commission is 5%. Look at the chart below, it is -8% since inception and if I am still holding it until today for 18 months, my return will be -13% (8% + 5% commission). They even perform poorer that the market (red line)! What is the need to pay 6% commission and 1.5% annual management fee to the fund companies when they can’t even do better than the overall market?

They even perform worse than Fixed Deposits and ASW2020!

Luckily I didn’t hold any mutual funds anymore. Because another important thing that I have learned from reading those investment books is -

Continue Reading »

For me, the reason that Life-Is-Good is because there are always new things for me to learn. I don’t have much talent that is born with me (other than things related to computer, and maybe talking cock) and I am very proud because I learn most things after I was born. And that is the fun part, if you have skills that you are born with, for example, incredible mathematic skill or drawing skill when you are 3 years old, you can’t teach people how to do that! But on the other hand, if you sucks at something at first and master it later in your life, you can teach people how to do that because you have gone through it yourself. And that explain why my classmates always scold me, "Like this also don’t know meh." Because he is born smart and he just don’t understand why other people can’t understand it.

[And that also explain why I can't teach people computing and how to talk cock]

Today, I am going to teach you a trick that I use ALL THE TIME to trick people on doing what you want them to do. Wahahahah. Bad! Bad! Bad AhYap! Even if you don’t want to use it, knowing it help you to figure out why you always get tricked by somebody else to do things that you don’t want to do! And the next time your insurance agent and MLM friends do that to you, you will know, and smile, and give him your middle finger, and tell him, ‘Don’t use that trick one me, mother fucker!’ :p

Let’s begin.

Hypnosis is playing with the brain. You first understand how the brain works and then you play with it (trick it/manipulate it).

Read this sentence 3 times - ‘Output’ of our brain must be logically linked to the ‘Input’. I am sure if you read it 300 times you also don’t know what does it mean. Examples will help.

Example #1

If I ask you in English, "What is your name Sir?" (the input), your answer will most likely be, "I am Mr Yap". (the output)

But if I ask you in Malay, "Siapa nama encik?" (the input), your brain will need to logically answer in Malay, "Nama saya Encik Yap". (the output)

So if I ask you in Chinese, "先生贵姓？" [What is your sur name] You will logically answer "姓叶。" [Yap]

It is not logical to answer somebody who asked you in English, "What is your name Sir?" and you answer in Malay, "Nama saya Adbullah Badawi".

Example #2

Chinese has their original Chinese name but because of the influence from the west, we have ‘English’ names too like David, Steven, Patrick, Sohai, etc.

If someone come to me and introduce to me, "I am Mr Wong." Then my brain will logically answer, "I am Mr Yap."

If he come to me and introduce to me, "I am David Wong." Then my brain will logically answer, "I am Sohai Yap" [Given that if I have an English name and it is 'Sohai' in this example]

Example #3

If somebody ask you, "What is your name." You can’t answer, "I like to eat KFC." because the output didn’t linked logically to the output!

If somebody ask you, "How to spell Hishammuddin?" You can’t answer, "Streamyx Sucks!". They don’t link.

The 3 examples above show that ‘Output’ of our brain must be logically linked to the ‘Input’. And our game starts from here.

How To Trick People To Do What You Want Them To Do By Giving Them ‘Choices’

Have you ever wonder why your insurance agent and network marketing friends can always ask you to meet up, even though you really don’t want to go because you know he is going to sell you something?

Because they don’t ask you, "Are you free for supper tonight?" If they do so, your answer can be either - "Yeah, I am free tonight for supper so you can steal my money from my wallet" or 99% of the chance, you will answer, "Oh, I am not free… [I have to wake up early tomorrow] [I have assignments/reports to do] [I have to buy durian for my mother-in-law] [I have period pain] [My gold fish is sick]  …" Most people (including you) are very talented liar.

Power salesman don’t ask you "When are you free for supper"! Power salesman ask, "Are we having supper tonight or tomorrow night?"

—Ka-Chiinnngggg—

Now your brain has to answer logically to the question, unless you are really not free tonight or tomorrow night, your brain will just be figuring out if you are free tonight or tomorrow night. Most of the time, you will just choose the ‘better’ choice out of the 2 given choices, tomorrow night. After answering unwillingly, "I think tomorrow night lar." and hang up. You still wondering why you want to see this guy, whose objective is to take money from you.

The trick here is, if you want someone to do something that you want them to do, give them 2 choices where either one is also what you want!

-Examples-

Your mother may say to you, "Do you want to help sweep the floor or you want to clear the rubbish?" Ka-Chinghhhh, either one is what your mother want you to do. Pick anyone and you fall into her trick.

The Osim salesman who want to sell you uZap asks, "Do you want to pay with credit cards or cash?" or "Do you want the white one or the black one?" [real life examples used by soufulow 10 years ago when he is a poor Osim salesman]

Your discipline teacher looking at your Beatles hair, "Do you want me to cut it for you or you want to cut it yourself?"

The ‘choices’ that you give to the victim is very important. In our previous examples, we give them 2 choices where both are what we want. They pick either one, they fall into our trap.

Instead of giving them A or B where both are what you want, you can give them A or B where A is what you want them to choose while B is an extremely ridiculous and awkward choice that doesn’t make any sense to be chosen, or B as a choice that simply look more terrible and worst than A.

-Examples-

You scare that your son will ask you for RM100 ang pow in the coming Chinese New Year, but you only want to give RM20 so you can save the money for Casino De Genting. You can ask, "Son, do you want RM20 for your ang pow this year or you want RM2?" Kekekeke. RM2 look worst that RM20, or course he will choose RM20!

You go to eat fried mee and the guy ask you, "Do you want 1 egg or 2 eggs?" Then your brain think, "Wow, one egg enough lar, where got people eat 2 one." Then you say one. But you fall into his trap already because what he want is to make sure you include egg to your fried mee so he can charge you 50 cents more. If he has asked you, "Do you want egg?", you may have said no and he will not be able to charge you 50 cents more. This is a ridiculous choice example.

Let’s say a coffin seller want to sell a coffin at a certain price, he will show the buyer 3 coffins. The 1st coffin will be the coffin that the seller want the buyer to buy. The 2nd coffin is same price as the 1st coffin but it looks extremely terrible (made with recycle newspaper by Proton Malaysia). The 3rd coffin is a very expensive coffin but look just the same as the 1st one (Made by Louis Vuitton). The coffin buyer will pick the 1st one because the Proton made coffin is terrible in quality while the Louis Vuitton coffin is scary at price. Both choices look worst then the 1st coffin and don’t make sense to be chosen.

-More Examples-

- Your boss, "Can you finish this for me today or tomorrow?"
(actually you can request to finish by next week)

- Your wife, "Are you going to buy me LV or Prada?"
(actually you can request to buy a cheaper Guess bag or a pasar malam pirated LV)

- Your husband, "Do you want to do it on the sofa or the kitchen?"
(actually you can choose not to do it, or do it in the car)

Continue Reading »

3 hours more to go for 2008! Remember that the Barisan Nasional government has promised us that petrol price will not be increased anymore this year. They kept their promise! But please me reminded that tomorrow will be next year! They didn’t promise us anything in 2008.

Happy 2008 with higher petrol price!

—

p/s Why it is boring to read newspaper and listen to what politicians have to say? Today they say, "People, don’t speculate on the petrol price as we will not increase it anytime soon". Tomorrow they will say, "Petrol price increases 40 cents per litre …" That’s newspaper. That’s politician. That’s Najib.

Hmmm, but I still don’t think they are brave enough to increase the petrol price before election. But why everyone is queuing up at the petrol stations right now? Hmm, Hmmmm, Hmmmmmmm …. confused…

I am writing about myself. But I want you to see if you can link it to yourself and other people, so you can learn. I hope reading this is better than reading newspaper!

Soufulow described that I have 2 characteristics, which interesting enough, contradict with each other! But both are true at the same time!

#1 - Stubborn! Never Listen and Always Think That I Am Right!

He said that I am stubborn and never listen and that I think I am the smartest people on earth. That I think I am always right, always instruct and teach people what to do and never listen to other people.

#2 - Keep On Changing! Today Say This, Tomorrow Say Another Thing!

Haha. This is fun. First I am said to be stubborn, now I am always changing. Soufulow say today I ask him to invest in real estate, tomorrow I ask him to do options trading, and the next day I ask him to invest in the stock market.

I find this very interesting too, so which is the correct description for me?! The stubborn and never listen one? Or the keep on changing one? Both sounds right and both sounds wrong! I am confused!

After thinking and thinking and thinking, I finally get my answer.

We can ONLY think the BEST we can think using all the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE we have at THAT MOMENT of time.

• You can’t ask a Standard 3 kids to do calculus because at that moment of time, his knowledge and experience only allow him to do basic math.
• You can’t ask Soufulow to describe how does sex feel when he is Standard 6 because his knowledge and experience of sex at that moment of time was just some porn video and magazine (龙虎豹). Of course, he has no problem teaching you how to da fei kei (masturbate) at that time.
• If you have never been to a place that is freaking cold (something like negative 40 Celsius) and the coldest weather you have experience is just the kindergarden-level-cold of Genting Highland, you may never be able to describe or even imagine how to live in negative 40 celcius. You may wonder will your pee become ice immediately when it come out? Will you dick freeze when you pee?

So, I figure out how my brain works.

In my life, especially the pass 5 years, I have been constantly learning, reading over 200 books, accumulated a lot of knowledge and life experience.

At one previous moment of my time, I think I should put all my money in real estate to generate rental income for me. At that moment, I think real estate is the best investment. (keyword - At That Moment) Because at that moment, my knowledge and experience are limited only to real estate. And I have experience from my parents that the stock market is very risky and buying stocks is nothing but gambling.

So at that moment of time if I am blogging, I will tell you how good real estate investing is and why you should put all your money in it.

And if someone come and tell me, at that moment of time, that real estate is not the best and I should invest in the stock market, you will see me in mode #1 - Stubborn and Never Listen. I will probably responded with, “Don’t be Sohai lar, stock market where can play one!”

At that moment of time, my knowledge and experience only allow me to think real estate is the best. Everything else that come contracting with my believe will be rejected.

Fortunately, I am really not that stubborn. I have another important characteristic called OPEN MINDED and a gifted skill known as THE ABILITY TO INVESTIGATE.

If you tell me me the stock market is good, and after scolding you as a sohai, I will actually get curious about the stock market. I am curious because I am open minded. If I am really a stubborn ass hole, I will shut my brain off and reject everything in fully automated mode (you will see lots of people like this).

When I get curious, I will start to investigate and think, “Why the heck he say stock market is good?”, “Why my mum and dad burn their fingers (actually the hands, legs and hairs) in the stock market and he can still say it is good?”

The guy who told me the stock market is good planted a seed into my brain. Then there might be a few more guys come to tell me the same thing! They are watering the seed and it grows in my brain. I became more and more curious and I started to investigate more and more.

I usually learn by reading. So I started to read, 1 book, 2 books, 3 books …. 20+ books!

AT THAT MOMENT OF TIME, after reading 20 books, my knowledge and experience are totally different than that moment that I tell the whole world real estate is the best!

After my investigation on the matter, I change my believe and dump the “real estate is the best” believe and replace it with “stock market is the best”. That’s why what I am blogging now is about stock market and not real estate.

So am I stubborn or constantly changing? You can’t fit me into either one because I am both!

If I encounter new things and after investigation, I think my old believe is better, then I will stick with the old believe and reject the new knowledge. Not only that it never becomes part of me but it also helps strengthened what I am believing right now!

On the other hand, if after investigation, I think the new knowledge is actually better than my existing one, I will not hesitate to dump my old believe and replace it with the new one!

I am ready to change any second if I find something better to replace my old believe. And I will be stubborn enough to reject everything that after my investigation, didn’t sounds better than what I have already known.

This is the correct description of me. My ability to investigate determine whether I should be stubborn or changing.

If you come to me today and tell me value investing sucks and I should trade like playing in BursaPursuit because the #1 winner grow his RM250,000 to RM1 million in less than 2 months (400%!) and I sucks because I can only compound my money 20% per year, do you think I will be stubborn or changing?

People Who Doesn’t Have The Ability To Investigate and Change Frequently

If you look at most aunties, you will notice that they change very frequently. Today she listen to this aunty says tomato is good, tonight she cook all-tomato-dinner for her husband and children - tomato rice, tomato soup, tomato dessert, tomato juice … yucks …

They are too open minded! They don’t investigate much before they accept new things. And these group of people will easily fall into SCAM and the hand of the marketing guys.

• He believes that Maxis is really giving him 500 free SMS is he forwards the message to 10 of his friends!
• He believes that Friendster and Hotmail is really too crowded and will delete his account if he didn’t forward that message to 15 of his friends!
• He believes that someone really want to borrow his bank account to transfer 5 million US Dollar and in return give him 5% commission!

While you may be laughing on these and tell me that only sohai will fall for these and you are not one of them, what about these -

• Do you believe that drinking milk will give you more calcium? Do you believe on what Anlene says, “2 cups of Anlene will give you the calcium you need a day”? (两杯Anlene给你一天所需要的钙质) What if I tell you that the more milk you drink, the more calcium you will lose! Wow!
• Do you believe that cancer is a disease that kill? What if I tell you cancer is a CURE that heal instead of kill and cancer patients should thank God that thay have cancer? Wow!
• Do you think eating fruits after your dinner is good for your digestion? What if I tell you eating fruits after your FOOD is actually bad for your digestion? Wow!

Are you open minded enough? Do you have the ability to investigate? At this moment of time, your knowledge and experience may be telling you that drinking milk will give you more calcium (so you drink more), cancer is something that kill (so you should hate it), fruit is good for digestion (so you should eat more papayas after your dinner).

At this moment of time, you may think milk is the best source of calcium, so you drink it yourself. You also force your innocent child to drink it and you force your old mum to drink it! You are not wrong, because at this moment of time, your knowledge and experience tell you that it is right and that’s the best.

In the next few posts, when I start to plant a seed on your brain and tell you the other way, you will have more knowledge to allows you to think differently. And that, will depends on whether you are open minded and have the ability to investigate, and the conclusion of your investigations.

People Who Is Not Open Minded

If the first group of people is the people who don’t have the ability to investigate and thus keep on changing (and keep on being conned and fall into marketing gimmicks), who is the second group?

The second group are those who are stubborn ass hole who are not willing to change and always think that they are right. They don’t need to investigate because they don’t even open up their mind! Instead of accepting everything, they accept nothing. They think they already know everything they need to know. They are very ego-type. They probably think they are the God or the Prophet. They always want to teach people what to do and how to do and will never listen. Terrorist is the extreme example, they kill with the name of God.

Worst! Sometimes even when everything prove that they are wrong, they still refuse to admit it and still want to say that they are right and others are wrong! Politicians do that all the time! Hishammuddin and Nazri do that all the time! Most of the time they realized that what they have said should not have been said, but because they have said it, they will need to stubbornly keep their old stand.

Referring back to the phase “We can ONLY think the BEST we can think using all the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE we have at THAT MOMENT of time”, if one is not open minded, his thinking will always be limited to his limited knowledge and experience at that time. Since he never learn new things, he never growth. That moment of time will be a long moment of time because he is almost the same all the time.

• A smoker will smoke until maybe he has lung cancer. His knowledge and experience tell him smoking is OK for decades. But when he got lung cancer, his experience change dramatically and so he can change almost immediately now. If he is open minded and start investigating at the good and bad about smoking, he may have more chances to quit smoking earlier. (Smoking not only burn holes in your lung but also burn holes in your wallet and make Barisan Nasional rich!)
• Do you think homosexual is a sin and bad? This is what his knowledge and experience at that moment of time tell him so. (Religion? School education?) If he is really open minded and investigate into the matter, he may find out that homosexual is not even a choice! If you are a guy and you feel ’something’ when you look at a sexy woman, it is not a choice! it is your body reaction because of your genetics and hormones. Whether you want to do something (sex, rape …) is a choice but the initial feeling is not a choice! For a gay man, he don’t feel that ’something’ when he see a sexy woman BUT he feel that ’something’ when he see a sexy man! It is not a choice! He can choose not to engage in homosexual acts BUT he can never choose to feel ’something’ when he see a woman instead of a man. He is born like that.
• Do you think prostitution should be banned? Read my post on Prostitution. Read the comments as well for examples of people that is not open minded enough and want to kick my ass without any supporting facts other than some bible clause or telling me ‘Malaysia is a Muslim country’.

Understand the phase “We can ONLY think the BEST we can think using all the KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE we have at THAT MOMENT of time” can gives us 2 different ways to look at the differences of religions.

#1. A religion fanatic (someone crazy with his own religion) may grow up his whole life knowing and practicing only 1 religion. All his knowledge and experience are limited to 1 religion and he might not be open minded enough to learn about other religions. Not only that he think his religion is the best but he also think that his religion is the ONLY ONE that is right. Other religions are just wrong, wrong, wrong. With this kind of thinking, how much room can he gives to other religion?

#2. If he knows that everyone can only think the best they can think with all the knowledge and experience they have at that moment of time, EVEN if his religion is REALLY the best and the true one in the world, he should be able to understand and accept that someone else might also think that their religion is the best and not his. Because for that man, his knowledge and experience limited him to think that his religion is the best and not yours! You are able to pick the right religion because your knowledge and experience are better than him. You will be more open minded and can accepts other religions to co-exist with yours.

If you are not open minded, you will not even want to investigate on things, which means you will never grow and never learn new things. Finance, health, relationship, spirituality … we all have our best at any moment of time with all our accumulated knowledge and experience and we can only do our best using what we know at that moment of time.

As we are still living, we will be constantly growing and we will encounter more knowledge everyday and gain new experience everyday. And you, have to decide if you want to be like the aunties who keep on changing frequently without investigating, or the politicians who are stubborn and never listen, or you want to be an open minded person who has the ability to investigate on new knowledge and decide whether you want to keep your old believes or replace it with the better one.

You should also be able to understand why some other people are so different than you because that’s what the best they can do, with their knowledge and experience at that moment of time.

Disclaimer

Today when I look at myself yesterday, I laugh at myself as being so stupid yesterday. I can’t believe I can be so stupid thinking that way just a day before. And tomorrow, I will laugh at myself being so stupid today!

I am constantly learning and growing everyday. Today what I write is the best I can think of Today (using my limited knowledge and experience accumulated up to today), tomorrow I will have new knowledge and experience that I will decide which one to take in as part of me and which one to reject stubbornly. So funny enough, my blog should have a disclaimer!

Take your own RISK if you read AhYap’s blog because he changes so fast that he may not think the same tomorrow! You understand that you might run the RISK of Brain Damage if you read on this blog. Read at your own RISK! Be open minded and investigate all the information yourself before you accept anything AND please don’t kick my ass just because I write something that contradict with your religion, because I am still not as smart as you leh!