Sunday, May 27, 2007 . 9:41 PM

Sunday, May 20, 2007 . 11:22 AM

Where is the Love? Economic pragmatism overrides Humanity?

This article is with regards to the increasingly desperate plea by the Somalian government for aid and intervention to stabilise the country's warlord rule and anarchy. Since 1991 where civil war broke out, Somalians have been at the mercy of warlords and their various governments. With a completely breakdown in order, these people have no way to defend themselves, from being murdered, from poverty, from AIDS, yet so little help is given to them by the international troops.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/576679.stm -Somalia refugees face bleak future
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5405586.stm- Rape risks for Darfur women
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6058920.stm- Head to head, what can be done

Somalians, for fear that they would be murdered in their homes by warlords, have to go live and sleep in forests at night, just to avoid these brutes. Women, just to get firewood, need to brave the risks of being attacked and raped, which is what happens most of the times. Worst, some of them are killed. Men and children shot, women gang-raped, is there no humanity in this anarchy?

Yet while the international community always emphasizes on aid, humanity, anything that can help people of our globe, nothing is done to help them, preferring to steer clear of this mess.

Why? Why invade a stabilised Iraq where people are still able to survive under Saddam?
Why make so much noise about Iran building a nuclear bomb?

And NOTHING is done about Somalia. Is it because they have no oil? Or is it because they're not threating us with nukes? Therefore, we just sit by and watch our fellow humans, people being gunned down in genocides, villages wiped out entirely, women being raped.

What does this tell us? Everything is done with a benefit only, ultimately, if we don't stand to gain anything at all. Is that why federations like the UN, EU and worst still the G8, Great 8 prefer to keep mum. Indeed, the UN has done something, provide humanitarian aid, but sometimes providing a cure is not enough, we must decisively root out the problem. Which is to resolve the anarchy. Even Ethiopia, not exactly a strong nation militarily has mobilised troops to protect these helpless refugees, and the UN and EU rather keep mum about this problem.

Indeed, the 1992 failure of US intervention may have been a setback, but if we need to protect these people, UN, supposedly a world organization priding itself in giving aid and fighting for humanitarian causes, is not doing anything.

And this leads us to wonder, is our cause in aiding more because of economic pragmatism compared to out of humanity. Why are so much troops given to Iraq to stabilise, when the Iraqi National Guard is already being trained up to protect their citizens? And 2/3s of Somalians are deprived of their basic rations and exposed to the scourge of warlords...

The time has come for us to note that whatever we do, humanity must come first, yes, the price may be heavy, but whatever it takes, mutual or personal benefits cannot come first, only then can we hope for a better peace and stability for the world.

Thursday, May 17, 2007 . 7:06 PM

Beyond the Limits (and I suppose GP?)- are people becoming LESS realistic?

Recently I came across this blog of supposedly the world's most hated blogger, and after reading several entries. I came to wonder, are people become less realistic. The following link takes you to the world of a highly ambitious adult mired in the mud over debt after a horrendously failed shot at becoming financially independent passively

http://www.iamfacingforeclosure.com/

This blog is done by Casey Serin himself, targetting at becoming financially independent through playing stocks, selling properties. Indeed, his initial success in "conning" money was impressive, but trying to do this permanently was not a option. This was what happened-

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And then instead of admitting that I’m in trouble and pulling the plug, I kept borrowing more and more via additional credit lines to keep feeding the machine a couple of extra months. I thought if I can finish the repairs and sell everything I can pay it all back. Then in August 2006 I ran out of money and started this blog

After making $30K on the first deal and paying off all our debt, I jumped the gun and quit my Programming job in Jan 2006 to do real estate flipping full-time. Looking back, I quit that job too early!! I should have stayed and done deals on the side until the real estate business can reliably replace my job income. But because I was doing too many cash-back-at-close deals I got a little ahead of myself.

Aside from finances, Galina is understandably frustrated with following me along toward MY dream of passive income / financial independence. I’ve been at it since 2000 and don’t have much to show for it yet. She is tired of my entrepreneurial roller-coaster and is about ready to settle down and have a family. I don’t want to think about it until I reach my goal. Am I being too selfish?

[Forgot to mention… Galina is looking for a full time job too and is cleaning houses on the side already to make extra income.]
Now, what does this tell us, are young people nowadays so obsessed with success that they go to any extent to make it happen, and even when it does not, they themselves do not realise the problem they're facing and the enormous load of it they face, as seen in the "prominient figure" seen above

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Here's a comment I found-

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unbelievableMay 14th, 2007 at 3:42 am

What’s with the “I may or may not do them all”?
Don’t kid yourself - you won’t do ANY of them.

Here is my take on your “list”
Website/blog development and consulting - $50/hour+
TAKE A JOB IN THE INDUSTRY - ANY JOB - TAKE 2 JOBS

Continue monetizing this foreclosure blog with advertising, sponsorships and affiliate commissions: $1,000-3,000/moReview foreclosure related services and products: $250-500 per review
CONTINUE BUILDING YOUR AD SPONSORSHIP

Help people stop foreclosure by offering and/or referring consulting, loss mitigation, short sale assistance, buying their house, etc: $ varies
YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED

Recruit for real estate investing college and make 50% commission: typically $8,000 per sale
DO NOT SELL THIS SCAM CRAP TO OTHER LOOSERS IN THE MAKING

Create and sell book(s) and info products around my foreclosure story: $ varies
ANYONE WHO WANTS YOUR “STORY” CAN READ ABOUT IT HERE FOR FREE. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME.

Work as an account executive with a commercial capital brokerage firm doing / referring / funding big deals 10 million and up: $50,000+ commissions/fees per deal
YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED

Invest in private equity funds: 24-60%+ returns
YOU ARE BROKE
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Now, this is already a view on Serin's illusions, what does it hint to us? People nowadays, especially urban citizens, and especially in the case of teens in my view, are affected by our fast-changing and improving way of life that they go to all costs to ensure success.

This is present even in AJC, and I believe, other educational institutions alike, for example, over a project, I already have friends that become so stressed out over doing the very best that they become very disorganised in their work, overlooking important factors, and in a small way, reminds me of Serin.

Does this affect their surrounding people? Indeed this is so, in the case of my overstressed friends, they're getting on my nerves too. For Serin, his wife is cleaning houses to earn meagre wages while he is sitting on his ass- blogging full time. I'm sorry for this but to me- WTH

So, can this trend be reversed/ averted or avoided? No, it's inevitable, but I believe what can be done is by society, especially the education system to emphasize that we must be down-to-earth, don't be overly ambitious... but more importantly, PLAN properly.

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Comments please....

Monday, May 14, 2007 . 12:10 AM

Why Youtube is the New ClearChannel

This entry is besed on the following article by MSNBC-
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18576975/

Now as we all know, this Hurley and Chen creation has been a tremendous feat for them, as well as in impacting our lives, introducing the visionary new form of media for us- Internet sharing. However, like all other Internet programs, they are soon, in fact, in a matter of hours, crapped up by socially/morally/ehically/you name it, unacceptable content. Hence, this news of paying for content by content providers would actually be very useful in upholding the quality ofvideo files sent in, by providing a specific level of standard to compare with. This would in overall, reduce abuse of the program by rogue users, but more importantly, raise the overall level of content provided, not only making it perhaps more useful, but also to be able to provide better entetainment to users.

However, one problem which has not been adequately focused upon would be the primary objective of creating a "society" which allows video-video sharing of content by people worldwide, which goes a long way to contributing to our so called dream of- globalisation. By introducing such measures, indeed it would raise the bar on content standard, but more significantly, what do we mean by quality video? How do you judge quality video and decide whether to pay for it? Would earthshaking videos like lonelygirl15 then be missed out? It is then up to us and the Google to decide whether to take their chances on setting a standard for video quality and risk missing out on potentially wonderful videos at the grassroots level as well as then, decide on the bar of quality video.

What do you think?

Saturday, May 5, 2007 . 10:13 PM

Customer Service

This is with reference to the article of the following web page
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/Advice/TheCustomerServiceHallOfShame.aspx?GT1=10020

As we all know, customer service has been a cause of concern in many countries, not just the US, but even in Singapore as well, for service excellence does benefit a economy, perhaps even a countries reputation in terms of tourism

However, such a trend of detiorating customer service has been worrying in recent years, especially seen in a recent knowledge of companies having no incentive in promoting sevice excellence, read the following excerpt.


" You'd think that people unhappy with their service would just switch companies, right? Or that 40% of Sprint's 53 million customers would take their business elsewhere. Not so fast.
What many of these companies have in common is that, even though they appear to take their customers for granted, their customers have little choice but to swear and bear it. Want to change your cell-phone company? Be ready to pay up and lose cheap calling to many of your friends. Want to dump your Internet provider? Dial-up service might be your only alternative. Want to change banks? Set aside a couple of days to figure out the record-keeping hassles.
And these companies know it. Bank of America, second on our list, can't resist making acquisition after acquisition, setting in motion a painful process for its acquired customers. Just Monday, Bank of America said it would pay $21 billion for Chicago's LaSalle Bank, a deal The Wall Street Journal said would raise Bank of America's share of U.S. deposits to 10%. The less choice you have, the less pressure companies will feel to offer quality service."


And as identified, companies then won;t take customer service seriously since there's no incentive to do so, wo what, it's only one customer less? That's the view of many companies nowadays

This is present in even Singapore. Take for example, the transport industry in Singapore, with the raise of fares over these few years, everytime fares are raised, better service is promised. But do we see any difference in the drivers, NO, buses still take a miserably long interval before arriving, And even for taxis, they still are the same, no special service etc.

In the civil service, with the 33% increase in wages, better and more efficient service is promised as well. However, once again, you don't see this, queues at polyclinics are still as long, to get a reply to a invitation to a event by a minister takes weeks, and you only get to meet the MP once a week. There's no difference. Once again, the commoner is taken for granted. When can only sit down and curse, but life goes on... What can we say? It's all in the name of retaining talent when our civil servants are one of the highest paid in the world

Customer Service, it's all really up to the individual companies to be ethical and responsible for it