HizeCool

and I’m lovin’ it

Theodore Parker described democracy as ‘a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people’. Winston Churchill was perhaps more realistic when he called it ‘the worst system of government except for all the rest’. Whichever definition is preferred (and they are not necessarily contradictory), most of us who have experienced democracy would not want to exchange it for any other system of government. But what kind of economic regime is best suited to real democracy? That question is too often ignored by economists.

Democracy assumes that ordinary people are wise enough to elect a government. If so, surely they are more than capable of deciding how best to spend their own money. And yet in the western European democracies people regularly vote for governments that take between 40 and 50 per cent of their incomes in taxation. In so doing they are saying that fallible politicians know better than they do themselves how to provide the health, education and other services that they need. The Adam Smith Institute has calculated that for the UK Tax Freedom Day falls on 30 May.

Even those on very low incomes are taxed to the hilt. For example workers on the minimum wage of £4.85 an hour start paying income tax after 19 hours work a week. By the time they have worked 27 hours, they are paying 33p in every extra pound in income tax and national insurance. Gordon Brown, with the agreement of the electorate, taxes the poor into greater poverty! How did we arrive at this crazy system?

In short, because we expect the government to do far too much for us. And as that attitude developed during the twentieth century our democracy gradually changed into what Ralph Harris has rightly called a ‘demockery’. To reverse this trend will require radical, new thinking on the part of people and politicians and a very large reduction in taxation and government expenditure. If the government were to stick to its basic roles of defence, maintaining law and order and providing a temporary safety net for those who had fallen on hard times, taxation could be reduced to between 10 and 15 per cent of GDP and Tax Freedom Day would be in February. Many taxes could be abolished and others slashed. The UK would become the world’s most dynamic economy as well as the truest democracy.

taken from Adam Smith Institute Blog

or from Winston Churchill

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

~ Winston Churchill

and everything about Democracy

I still love Malaysia. Let’s go vote today

Lately I have been told that I got 10 A’s for the SPM myself. In fact, if were to compare with today’s SPM result, these kids are hitting the sky with 20 or 40 over Aces. Who am I were to compare to them?

Moreover, I don’t have 10 A’s for my SPM. Even if I do also it shall be just a couple of A’s. But strictly not 10 A’s. That because I flunked my chemistry paper. I remembered that I was been given tips what shall be appearing in that paper few days before. All I need to do was to memorize the entire essay and structured questions part.

In order to score in that area, I need to memorize the chemistry chart. Hence, I studied the chemistry chart so I won’t miss out that area. Coming to the exam, I mistaken the chemistry chart between the Helium and Hydrogen if I still remembered correctly. It has been 9 years since my last SPM exam, so it is bearable to forget it.

Anyway, I screwed that paper big time. And given that I can even screw up that paper with the insider tips, do you still think I can get 10 A’s? Please. Drop it.

kthxbai!!!!

I went to Low Yat Plaza last night with a friend of mine. He was planning to upgrade his PC and there we go. Wake up late in the middle of the noon, I skipped both breakfast and lunch. So, by the time we reached Low Yat it was around 6pm.

When we finished our business of selecting the peripherals for upgrade, we got about 1 hour of time to loiter before they are done with the PC assembly. So, we headed to a nearby coffeeshop for a drink. Whether was it luck or anything, we came upon the Hainan Tea Station.

Since both of us lazy to walk any further, we decided to settle at this shop. We ordered coffee, toast and nasi lemak. Not to complain, but the service was worse. To begin with, my friend asked for the password to access their free wi-fi. One of the worker told my friend that the password was “A for Ten” in cantonese which sounds like “A Sap Ching” which suppose to mean “A10000″ but she meant type A ten times instead. This friend of mine keep trying and to no avail he unable to sign in. We asked the worker again, that what was the password? She then replied, “A for Elephant, ten times”. I was like flabbergasted… huh? “A for Elephant Ten Times”?
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With the trend of having rally and protest scaling up in Malaysia, it seems more of a festive rather than anything else. With so many bandwagons and upcoming events like this, why not the government come with solution that will be a win-win situation for both the government and opposition.

Here how it should be. First, the government should allow such rally occur often. It helps the economic. Everyone going to the rally is like going to watch any concert or attending a big sport competition (imagine the Euro Cup which ended recently). Much more bigger than Jom Heboh! from TV3.

For start, the government can work out few packages for these events. These packages come in few prices.
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too much stuff I wanted to blog about. It has been a while since the pleasure of blogging gone missing. Somehow somewhere sometimes, it just doesn’t feel like it. No longer having the pleasure of blogging.

there are too much of thoughts and too much of stuff to blog. I had topics but need to refine them. Compose and fine tuning. Properly articulate it in nice verse and sentence. It doesn’t seems much of the right words. I lost of my words. Seems like the cat got my tongue.

Things that ran across my mind were:-

1. Immediate Superior - Sexism
I have a colleague whom told me that he cannot work under the female supervision. Namely if he had a female boss. First thought was “does it really matters?” It doesn’t matter whether it is a black cat or a white cat as long as the cat can catch the mouse.

2. Effect of recent petrol hike
Everyone keep complaining and mumbling after the increase. It won’t stop the petrol from hiking. Everything seems slow and the bad times are coming faster than we expected. If this continues to go on, we are going into a time where far greater than the Great Depression.

3. Movies - Kung Fu Panda and more
Manage to catch some nice movies lately. From the PCs and from the cinema. These scenes and storyline playing with my thoughts. Urgh… not good.

4. Work, Authority and Stuff
Would be quite sensitive to put in words here. So should do a private post about it I hope.

5. Books
The Pirate’s Dilemma got me to put on my thinking cap. Which means I never really give it a thought until recently. Change. I need. Let’s see….

Other than that…

P.S. I Love You

Just when you think Monday sucks, how you wish you can jump out of an airplane without anything? barely naked? I would say no parachute skydiving!!

Or laugh yourself at the so-called CEO with his identity theft despite being the boss of Identity Theft protection company. Or how we claimed we have equal win from the Justice Court with the land size of a mere .. i don’t know what to call it. Sigh*

So, what is next? Call uniform sexy? when it is drenched when rain. Ehmmm.. miss the good old school day. hahaha

Note the growing issue about the alternative route to Bandar Mahkota Cheras and Sungai Long? It seems that it is between Narajaya Sdn Bhd and the residents against the toll operator, Grand Saga whether to reopen the shorter and free road leading to the both housing area.

What caused the fury? It is always the matter of the conflict of interests. Grand Saga wanted to making extra by the additional toll that the residents couldn’t bypass. Grand Saga do have employees and workers. They needless to say they have a fixed operation cost. However, the residents whom staying in the both town wanted to keep some extra from paying the additional booth. Maybe for rainy days?

It seems that the matters was about the interest of the single company or the mass? Let just see the outcome from this event.

Thomas L. Friedman wrote a nice article last week that inspired me. It got me thinking… of my nation; my country. Are we going to have a nation-building society? a hopeful nation-building people?

In his column, he stated:-

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

Looking into Malaysia, this country of mine where she is undergo a transition of power. This changes… it shows through the recent general election that we, the people care about the nation. Everyone wants to do their role in nation-building.
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It’s good to be in Malaysia… not.

1. LHDN spent a lot on the IT infrastructure as well as paying huge amount for bandwidth. But it cannot cater for the surge of traffic?

a) Is it the system is not ready for the e-Filing?
b) Is the bandwidth in sufficient?
c) Is the LHDN under the cyber warfare attacks? DDoS / Zombies attack?
d) Is the people inside not doing their job?
e) Did they analysis the take up rate as compared to last year? Increment of how many percentage?

2. LHDN did not have enough envelope when I went to submit my tax declaration yesterday. I was informed that I need to deposit my documents in a box. However, when I obtained the form I was not given any envelope. Some LHDN branches practicing different way of doing things.

a) the one at Menara Kausar only allow the document to be submitted in a sealed envelope. They did not provide sufficient envelopes. No form of acknowledge mechanism were identified.
b) the one at the Pandan Indah allows the document to be submitted without an envelope. They will acknowledge the receipt of the photocopy of the document.

I ended up confuse which is the right way for a first timer like me.

3. Going to both RHB and CIMB in Pandan Indah to get the Western Union Fast Cash. Both systems are down. Questions:-

a) Since these banks are the agents for Western Union, is the Western Union does not provide sufficient facilities to accomodate the services?
b) Is the banks shortchange the service? How come even the RHB at the KLCC also the same. Except that the system isn’t down. It’s just purely slow.
c) The services suck. big time. I was informed that the system was down. Hence, I told them that I been waiting for some time until it was my turn, the system goes offline. Great. What was the option? I asked. I been told that I can go to the BSN or Bank Rakyat to do the collection there. Yeah… right. Thanks alot. That’s helpful.

*My own personal remarks*
All the branches at the bank are connected via a private network provided by the local service provider here. Be it Telekom Malaysia or Time or watever. The monopolization of the infrastructure makes it costly for all the branches to have a higher bandwidth. Hence, giving each branch around 1Meg or 512k is not sufficient enough…. and btw, there are too many factors to be considered about.

However, the main point is it need to take some time to make the changes.

So, tell me about Malaysia.. tell me about it. It’s a love and hate relationship.

Read about the complains here:-
LHDN E-Filing Site Is Down
eFiling Crashing With 1 Day to Go
What the Fuck is LHDN doing ?
Income Tax e-filing Server down?

It has been a very hectic week. Just because of the tender submission and RFI submission deadline close to each other, I had to put more effort for them. Simply any sort of mistake is unacceptable at all.

Finally, at this time I managed to completed two (2) RFI and one (1) tender submission. With these 3 stuff occupying my mind, I had no room for anything. Just being very blank and blur despite I yet still have to handle daily requirements from the partners and customer. Working in the sales line is very demanding of your time, especially if we wanted to meet the customer or the partner’s expectation.

There are still few things that clouded my mind. I do hope I can think straight but it seems its getting tough. With the ongoing demand and pressure for the numbers, its just pushing me off to the edge. At times, I really wanted to pen down few over the blog but when I just staring at the screen I had the blog block. Earlier I had all the title and content to put into words but as I managed to work on 2 sentences… it just stop there. Not moving. Not going anywhere.

And I am still blur. For that there are 26 and 28 to anticipate. Tender preparation and tender submission again.

I am just the blurry type again.