Uncertainty about future taxes and regulations is enemy No. 1 of economic growth.
By ALLAN H. MELTZER
The administration's stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible.
But they want new stimulus measures—which is convincing evidence that they too recognize that the earlier measures failed. And so the U.S. was odd-man out at the G-20 meeting over the weekend, continuing to call for more government spending in the face of European resistance.
The contrast with President Reagan's antirecession and pro-growth measures in 1981 is striking. Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of nondefense spending. Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and it continued to expand above trend rates.
Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.
Most of the earlier spending was a very short-term response to long-term problems. One piece financed temporary tax cuts. This was a mistake, and ignores the role of expectations in the economy. Economic theory predicts that temporary tax cuts have little effect on spending. Unless tax cuts are expected to last, consumers save the proceeds and pay down debt. Experience with past temporary tax reductions, as in the Carter and first Bush presidencies, confirms this outcome.
Another large part of the stimulus went to relieve state and local governments of their budget deficits. Transferring a deficit from the state to the federal government changes very little. Some teachers and police got an additional year of employment, but their gain is temporary. Any benefits to them must be balanced against the negative effect of the increased public debt and the temporary nature of the transfer.
The Obama economic team ignored past history. The two most successful fiscal stimulus programs since World War II—under Kennedy-Johnson and Reagan—took the form of permanent reductions in corporate and marginal tax rates. Economist Arthur Okun, who had a major role in developing the Kennedy-Johnson program, later analyzed the effect of individual items. He concluded that corporate tax reduction was most effective.
Another defect of Obamanomics was that part of the increased spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill was held back. Remember the oft-repeated claim that the spending would go for "shovel ready" projects? That didn't happen, though spending will flow more rapidly now in an effort to lower unemployment and claim economic success during the fall election campaign.
In his January 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama recognized that the United States must increase exports. He was right, but he has done little to help, either by encouraging investment to increase productivity, or by supporting trade agreements, despite his promise to the Koreans that he repeated in Toronto. Export earnings are the only way to service our massive foreign borrowing. This should be a high priority. Isn't anyone in the government thinking about the future?
Mr. Obama has denied the cost burden on business from his health-care program, but business is aware that it is likely to be large. How large? That's part of the uncertainty that employers face if they hire additional labor.
The president asks for cap and trade. That's more cost and more uncertainty. Who will be forced to pay? What will it do to costs here compared to foreign producers? We should not expect businesses to invest in new, export-led growth when uncertainty about future costs is so large.
Then there is Medicaid, the medical program for those with lower incomes. In the past, states paid about half of the cost, and they are responsible for 20% of the additional cost imposed by the program's expansion. But almost all the states must balance their budgets, and the new Medicaid spending mandated by ObamaCare comes at a time when states face large deficits and even larger unfunded liabilities for pensions. All this only adds to uncertainty about taxes and spending.
Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors' and producers' uncertainty. That's not the way to get more investment and employment.
Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it's harmful now.
In 1980, I had the privilege of advising Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to ignore the demands of 360 British economists who made the outrageous claim that Britain would never (yes, never) recover from her decision to reduce government spending during a severe recession. They wanted more spending. She responded with a speech promising to stay with her tight budget. She kept a sustained focus on long-term problems. Expectations about the economy's future improved, and the recovery soon began.
That's what the U.S. needs now. Not major cuts in current spending, but a credible plan showing that authorities will not wait for a fiscal crisis but begin to act prudently and continue until deficits disappear, and the debt is below 60% of GDP. Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) offered a plan, but the administration and Congress ignored it.
The country does not need more of the same. Successful leaders give the public reason to believe that they have a long-term program to bring a better tomorrow. Let's plan our way out of our explosive deficits and our hesitant and jobless recovery by reducing uncertainty and encouraging growth.
Mr. Meltzer is a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of "A History of the Federal Reserve" (University of Chicago Press, 2003 and 2010).
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Who Betrays Us?
American Thinker ^ | June 29, 2010 | G. Murphy Donovan
Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 3:47:25 PM by neverdem
Crystal is not glass. Strike crystal and it rings like a bell. When it breaks, crystal makes a special noise, a sound like the end of music. The other day, we heard the end of a special elegy, the 24 notes of taps, when General Stanley McChrystal furled his flag.
McChrystal was no ordinary infantryman; he chose the road not taken. Rangers are a unique fraternity where only extraordinary warriors thrive. Those who rise to the top in any calling often walk a fine line between genius and eccentricity, and soldiers are no exception. General McChrystal crossed the line more than once, but he never stepped on a land mine until Rolling Stone magazine came to do a "profile" at HQ Afghanistan.
The agent of McChrystal's demise was an effete freelancer who looks and sounds like a prep school refugee. Michael Hastings was on special assignment for a magazine whose usual fare is sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Yet, like Hugh Hefner's Playboy, Jann Wenner's Rolling Stone has cultural pretensions. Those affectations were on full display in the McChrystal issue. Lady Gaga [sic] graces the cover; equipped with a bullet brassiere on full auto. Ms. Gaga is a performance artist whose cultural niche is defined by Madonna groupies.
Like Hefner, Wenner panders to a young and, by their own definition, hip demographic of readers under 30 years of age; both publishers might charitably be described as priapic geriatrics at 84 and 64 years of age, respectively. Like all purveyors of progressive culture, Wenner has trouble separating value and vulgarity. And to no one's surprise, he consistently carries water for the left -- as a Clintonista or, more recently, as an Obama contributor.
From any perspective, we have to assume that General McChrystal and/or his staff was aware of these things and the risks of having of an antiwar zealot in their midst. The key question to be answered is: Who was using whom?
After Afghanistan, a maverick like McChrystal wasn't going to be selected for a political job like Army Chief of Staff. Hard to picture McChrystal, like the incumbent George Casey, making the rounds of the Sunday gab shows reminding citizens that the feelings of Muslims are more important than the safety of soldiers massacred at Ft. Hood, Texas. And surely McChrystal wasn't a candidate to follow Mike Mullen into the political swamp at the JCS. On the Pentagon's E Ring, Mullen is better known for social issues, like gay rights for sailors, than he is for war-fighting. There were no stars in McChrystal's future, either; he already had his four.
McChrystal is a country music fan, so no doubt he's familiar with Kristofferson's iconic line: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." When McChrystal let the fox into the Afghan hen house, he knew which huevos were in play.
Before the Rolling Stone controversy, the friction between the "White House wimps" and the military brass was the worst-kept secret in Washington. Yet the rift, from the beginning, was cultivated by the president -- and what can be described only as a cabal of divisive beltway toadies. From the start, Obama ignored the field commander, refused to define the enemy or describe the end game -- or explain to the American public why Afghanistan "is a war of necessity." The party line had three "soft" features: don't use the word "war," don't mention Islam, and restrict descriptions of the bad guys to either Taliban or al-Qaeda.
Shortly after the election, Obama put on his long pants and fired the previous ISAF commander in Afghanistan -- and then dithered for months over troop deployments. Since then, the White House has been driving on a learner's permit. In the past year and a half, the commander in chief has met the tactical commander on few occasions; McChrystal, in contrast, has met with Hamid Karzai, face to face, over fifty times during the same period. If McChrystal claims Obama is "disengaged" only on the subject of war, the general is being generous.
The hapless Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), told America that the Iraq "war is lost" just before the last American election. A newly elected vice president followed up with very public carping at General McChrystal's expense. If there were ever a toady who should be cashiered for loose lips, it's Joe Biden (hereafter known as Joe "Bite Me" to troops in the field). Biden doesn't just put his foot in his mouth; he doesn't bother to remove his shoes after he steps in something. Biden's advice on Iraq was to subdivide it -- i.e., into three new states [sic] -- as if the U.N. didn't have enough dysfunctional members.
"Team" Obama was augmented by Richard Holbrooke and Karl Eikenberry early on, both sent to Kabul, presumably, to make sure McChrystal walked the "soft power" walk. Unfortunately, neither Holbroke nor Eikenberry plays well with other adults.
Holbrooke's function in South Asia is as a dark swan. He doesn't seem to get along with anyone but himself. In the foggy world of diplomacy, androgyny, and cookie-pushing, Holbrooke stands out. He is supposed to be a special envoy, but his specialties might be limited to arrogance and petulance. Holbrooke, former Clintonista and incumbent Karzai-basher, doesn't play well wit third-world leaders or allied military officers.
And Eikenberry's performance isn't too far removed from Holbrooke's. Soon after arriving in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry started to "back-channel" McChrystal, (i.e., send critical, uncomplimentary reports back to Washington). Indeed, Eikenberry's pique seems to have been tweaked because a Brit, and not Eikenberry, was appointed "viceroy" -- a slight he seems to lay at the feet of a Karzai/McChrystal conspiracy. Eikenberry was miscast in Rolling Stone as a martinet "stuck in 1985"; the year may be closer to 1895, and the Eikenberry character could have come straight out of "Gilbert and Sullivan."
On the U.N. side of Kabul, the blue helmets were having a civil war of their own. Norway's Kai Eide and his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, had a transnational shootout over the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai's election in 2009. Galbraith got fired, Karzai got a second term, and Eide took the Quisling special back to Scandinavia. Eide was and remains an ardent fan of accommodation with the Taliban.
These "team" players were supplemented by a gaggle of second-guessers back in Washington, with the president's national security advisor, Jim Jones, on point. Jones' most recent contribution to the clueless sweeps was a "greedy Jew" joke spliced into a speech that was supposed to underline American support of Israel. After eighteen months in office, the Commander in Chief has traveled to several Arab, Turkish, and Muslim capitals, yet never to Israel. Mr. Obama's Islamic globetrotting sends a message consistent with Jones' taste in jokes. From the beginning, the former Marine commandant, like Joe Biden, also made loud noises that undermined or contradicted McChrystal's strategy at the front.
So what's a soldier to do when a president hand-picks him to lead the charge in combat and then allows lower-echelon cockroaches to eat his lunch? McChrystal did what any good guerrilla fighter would do: He let another insect carry a poison pill back to a dysfunctional nest. Indeed, General McChrystal performed one final service for his country: He used a press nitwit to expose a confederacy of national security dunces using the prescribed "soft" tactics -- things like toxic ridicule.
The clincher in all of this is Hillary; she comes off like the Cheshire cat, grinning from ear to ear while the Oval Office tries to put lipstick on another pig. Clinton has kept her distance: "Give him [McChrystal] what he wants," says she. If and when the Obama national security crowd self-destructs, Hilary can say "I told you so," pick up the pieces, and do a pantssuit rendition of what Bobby Kennedy did to Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
Any idea that McChrystal was insubordinate or threatened civilian authority is bravo sierra, as they say in the barracks. The general simply raised the blinds and let in some light. He even helped the young president to grow up a bit. On the day Obama let his field commander go, the president used the word "war" to describe the Afghan conflict. That's progress! Obama then appointed a third field commander in eighteen months; demoting the CENTCOM commander to replace McChrystal in Kabul.
And yes, the new guy is the old David Petraeus, who, when serving in Iraq under George Bush, was vilified by the left, including then-Senator Obama, as a liar and traitor. Indeed, the same news outlets that published those scurrilous George Soros ads now celebrate the Petraeus choice as "inspired." General "Betray Us" under a Republican has morphed into General "Save Us" under a Democrat. So much for politics stopping at the water's edge.
So what's the plan now? It appears the exit strategy for Iraq and Afghanistan is on schedule (according to Joe Bite Me) and Petraeus will be the happy face of at least one success, even if it belongs to the previous administration. Yet the president is still hostage to a campaign slogan, that "war of necessity." Unfortunately, the Oval Office position is already flanked left and right. The incumbent does not want to carry any war, of choice or necessity, into the next presidential cycle. And the Cheshire cat just grins and waits.
All of this highlights the distinction between politics Chicago-style and principled soldiering McChrystal-style. Given a choice between sacrifice and survival, which road do men of character take? McChrystal has answered that question: He fell on his sword. Obama will get back to us in thirteen months.
Stanley McChrystal may have furled his flag, but let's hope he has not spiked his guns. In or out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the threat whose name we dare not speak will get worse before it gets better. When it does, real soldiers will need to strap on their irons again. Keep your powder dry, Stan.
The author is a Vietnam veteran with 25 years of military service. He also writes at G. Murphy Donovan and Agnotology in Journalism.
Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 3:47:25 PM by neverdem
Crystal is not glass. Strike crystal and it rings like a bell. When it breaks, crystal makes a special noise, a sound like the end of music. The other day, we heard the end of a special elegy, the 24 notes of taps, when General Stanley McChrystal furled his flag.
McChrystal was no ordinary infantryman; he chose the road not taken. Rangers are a unique fraternity where only extraordinary warriors thrive. Those who rise to the top in any calling often walk a fine line between genius and eccentricity, and soldiers are no exception. General McChrystal crossed the line more than once, but he never stepped on a land mine until Rolling Stone magazine came to do a "profile" at HQ Afghanistan.
The agent of McChrystal's demise was an effete freelancer who looks and sounds like a prep school refugee. Michael Hastings was on special assignment for a magazine whose usual fare is sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Yet, like Hugh Hefner's Playboy, Jann Wenner's Rolling Stone has cultural pretensions. Those affectations were on full display in the McChrystal issue. Lady Gaga [sic] graces the cover; equipped with a bullet brassiere on full auto. Ms. Gaga is a performance artist whose cultural niche is defined by Madonna groupies.
Like Hefner, Wenner panders to a young and, by their own definition, hip demographic of readers under 30 years of age; both publishers might charitably be described as priapic geriatrics at 84 and 64 years of age, respectively. Like all purveyors of progressive culture, Wenner has trouble separating value and vulgarity. And to no one's surprise, he consistently carries water for the left -- as a Clintonista or, more recently, as an Obama contributor.
From any perspective, we have to assume that General McChrystal and/or his staff was aware of these things and the risks of having of an antiwar zealot in their midst. The key question to be answered is: Who was using whom?
After Afghanistan, a maverick like McChrystal wasn't going to be selected for a political job like Army Chief of Staff. Hard to picture McChrystal, like the incumbent George Casey, making the rounds of the Sunday gab shows reminding citizens that the feelings of Muslims are more important than the safety of soldiers massacred at Ft. Hood, Texas. And surely McChrystal wasn't a candidate to follow Mike Mullen into the political swamp at the JCS. On the Pentagon's E Ring, Mullen is better known for social issues, like gay rights for sailors, than he is for war-fighting. There were no stars in McChrystal's future, either; he already had his four.
McChrystal is a country music fan, so no doubt he's familiar with Kristofferson's iconic line: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." When McChrystal let the fox into the Afghan hen house, he knew which huevos were in play.
Before the Rolling Stone controversy, the friction between the "White House wimps" and the military brass was the worst-kept secret in Washington. Yet the rift, from the beginning, was cultivated by the president -- and what can be described only as a cabal of divisive beltway toadies. From the start, Obama ignored the field commander, refused to define the enemy or describe the end game -- or explain to the American public why Afghanistan "is a war of necessity." The party line had three "soft" features: don't use the word "war," don't mention Islam, and restrict descriptions of the bad guys to either Taliban or al-Qaeda.
Shortly after the election, Obama put on his long pants and fired the previous ISAF commander in Afghanistan -- and then dithered for months over troop deployments. Since then, the White House has been driving on a learner's permit. In the past year and a half, the commander in chief has met the tactical commander on few occasions; McChrystal, in contrast, has met with Hamid Karzai, face to face, over fifty times during the same period. If McChrystal claims Obama is "disengaged" only on the subject of war, the general is being generous.
The hapless Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), told America that the Iraq "war is lost" just before the last American election. A newly elected vice president followed up with very public carping at General McChrystal's expense. If there were ever a toady who should be cashiered for loose lips, it's Joe Biden (hereafter known as Joe "Bite Me" to troops in the field). Biden doesn't just put his foot in his mouth; he doesn't bother to remove his shoes after he steps in something. Biden's advice on Iraq was to subdivide it -- i.e., into three new states [sic] -- as if the U.N. didn't have enough dysfunctional members.
"Team" Obama was augmented by Richard Holbrooke and Karl Eikenberry early on, both sent to Kabul, presumably, to make sure McChrystal walked the "soft power" walk. Unfortunately, neither Holbroke nor Eikenberry plays well with other adults.
Holbrooke's function in South Asia is as a dark swan. He doesn't seem to get along with anyone but himself. In the foggy world of diplomacy, androgyny, and cookie-pushing, Holbrooke stands out. He is supposed to be a special envoy, but his specialties might be limited to arrogance and petulance. Holbrooke, former Clintonista and incumbent Karzai-basher, doesn't play well wit third-world leaders or allied military officers.
And Eikenberry's performance isn't too far removed from Holbrooke's. Soon after arriving in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry started to "back-channel" McChrystal, (i.e., send critical, uncomplimentary reports back to Washington). Indeed, Eikenberry's pique seems to have been tweaked because a Brit, and not Eikenberry, was appointed "viceroy" -- a slight he seems to lay at the feet of a Karzai/McChrystal conspiracy. Eikenberry was miscast in Rolling Stone as a martinet "stuck in 1985"; the year may be closer to 1895, and the Eikenberry character could have come straight out of "Gilbert and Sullivan."
On the U.N. side of Kabul, the blue helmets were having a civil war of their own. Norway's Kai Eide and his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, had a transnational shootout over the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai's election in 2009. Galbraith got fired, Karzai got a second term, and Eide took the Quisling special back to Scandinavia. Eide was and remains an ardent fan of accommodation with the Taliban.
These "team" players were supplemented by a gaggle of second-guessers back in Washington, with the president's national security advisor, Jim Jones, on point. Jones' most recent contribution to the clueless sweeps was a "greedy Jew" joke spliced into a speech that was supposed to underline American support of Israel. After eighteen months in office, the Commander in Chief has traveled to several Arab, Turkish, and Muslim capitals, yet never to Israel. Mr. Obama's Islamic globetrotting sends a message consistent with Jones' taste in jokes. From the beginning, the former Marine commandant, like Joe Biden, also made loud noises that undermined or contradicted McChrystal's strategy at the front.
So what's a soldier to do when a president hand-picks him to lead the charge in combat and then allows lower-echelon cockroaches to eat his lunch? McChrystal did what any good guerrilla fighter would do: He let another insect carry a poison pill back to a dysfunctional nest. Indeed, General McChrystal performed one final service for his country: He used a press nitwit to expose a confederacy of national security dunces using the prescribed "soft" tactics -- things like toxic ridicule.
The clincher in all of this is Hillary; she comes off like the Cheshire cat, grinning from ear to ear while the Oval Office tries to put lipstick on another pig. Clinton has kept her distance: "Give him [McChrystal] what he wants," says she. If and when the Obama national security crowd self-destructs, Hilary can say "I told you so," pick up the pieces, and do a pantssuit rendition of what Bobby Kennedy did to Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
Any idea that McChrystal was insubordinate or threatened civilian authority is bravo sierra, as they say in the barracks. The general simply raised the blinds and let in some light. He even helped the young president to grow up a bit. On the day Obama let his field commander go, the president used the word "war" to describe the Afghan conflict. That's progress! Obama then appointed a third field commander in eighteen months; demoting the CENTCOM commander to replace McChrystal in Kabul.
And yes, the new guy is the old David Petraeus, who, when serving in Iraq under George Bush, was vilified by the left, including then-Senator Obama, as a liar and traitor. Indeed, the same news outlets that published those scurrilous George Soros ads now celebrate the Petraeus choice as "inspired." General "Betray Us" under a Republican has morphed into General "Save Us" under a Democrat. So much for politics stopping at the water's edge.
So what's the plan now? It appears the exit strategy for Iraq and Afghanistan is on schedule (according to Joe Bite Me) and Petraeus will be the happy face of at least one success, even if it belongs to the previous administration. Yet the president is still hostage to a campaign slogan, that "war of necessity." Unfortunately, the Oval Office position is already flanked left and right. The incumbent does not want to carry any war, of choice or necessity, into the next presidential cycle. And the Cheshire cat just grins and waits.
All of this highlights the distinction between politics Chicago-style and principled soldiering McChrystal-style. Given a choice between sacrifice and survival, which road do men of character take? McChrystal has answered that question: He fell on his sword. Obama will get back to us in thirteen months.
Stanley McChrystal may have furled his flag, but let's hope he has not spiked his guns. In or out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the threat whose name we dare not speak will get worse before it gets better. When it does, real soldiers will need to strap on their irons again. Keep your powder dry, Stan.
The author is a Vietnam veteran with 25 years of military service. He also writes at G. Murphy Donovan and Agnotology in Journalism.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Nicholas Tse’s Love Philosophy
A couple of weeks ago, I read that HK superstars Nicholas Tse 谢霆锋 and Cecilia Cheung 张柏芝 have just welcomed their latest addition to the family. Now they are a happy family of 4.
I must say, Nicholas Tse has definitely surprised me repeatedly.
He has totally changed my initial opinion of him. When he first came onto the entertainment scene, I dismissed him very quickly as another 'bad boy'. He exemplifies all if not most of the 'bad boy' traits. Cocky, cool, good-looking, good with women.
And when the scandal involving his wife Cecilia Cheung broke, I thought to myself, that's it… the marriage is probably over. With all the Chinese media blowing things out of proportion, and so much scrutiny surrounding his wife, someone like him probably would throw in the towel. I know, I know… I should not have been so quick to judge. And I must say, I have been humbled.
He supported her throughout the entire incident. He shielded her through the entire saga. He did not say much, but his actions speak louder than words. At her lowest point, he was her rock and refuge.
Later, when things have blown over, Cecilia revealed in a TV interview that she was so scared when she found out about the photos leak, as she knew that her photos would eventually surface. And when she told Nicholas, he just told her, "Don't worry, I am here." And when Nicholas was later interviewed about the saga, he said, "When I married her, I already know what sort of woman she was…" I am so touched by his words and his actions because he is so absolutely sure about his own choice and his own decision. And even though the saga might have made him 'lose face' which is such a big thing with Chinese culture, he was totally unfazed by it!
He surprised me a second time with his love philosophy 爱情观. I caught one of his more recent interviews with one of the China's TV stations, and when asked about his love philosophy, he said, there are 4 stages when it comes to love.
1. Passion 激情
2. Romance 爱情
3. Family Love 亲情
4. Friendship 友情
And these are the four components of love 感情.
I am surprised not because there is anything wrong with what he has said. What he has said is what many relationship experts have been trying to share, but I just did not expect an artist, needless to say superstar like him to think that way! We often read about break-ups and divorces in the entertainment world especially Hollywood. And the reason is simple, as many of these relationships do not go past the first stage – Passion. I always describe passion like fireworks. It's absolutely beautiful, but it's also short-lived and it will fizzle out eventually.
I really liked what he said about the 4th stage. He said eventually, as the children grow, and you become old, it will turn into friendship. And at this point, some of the audience probably have expressions of disbelief, and the host told them to give him a chance to explain, since he is a 'person of experience'.
He said, ultimately, we are all looking for a companion.
I think many people usually miss this point. They don't understand that passion and romance do not last forever. So they choose their mate just based on the first two stages. And when they move on to the third and the fourth phase, the cracks start to show, because they are just simply not compatible. They have nothing to talk about. They actually do not even enjoy each other's company! I have heard of quite a lot of husbands or wives staying out as late as possible, or leaving the house as early as possible, as they want to spend as little time as possible with their spouse.
It is really wonderful that Nicholas Tse is sharing his love philosophy. My hope is that more of his impressionable fans would listen to him and subscribe to his philosophy.
Maybe Nic would succeed where many relationship gurus have failed. :)
I must say, Nicholas Tse has definitely surprised me repeatedly.
He has totally changed my initial opinion of him. When he first came onto the entertainment scene, I dismissed him very quickly as another 'bad boy'. He exemplifies all if not most of the 'bad boy' traits. Cocky, cool, good-looking, good with women.
And when the scandal involving his wife Cecilia Cheung broke, I thought to myself, that's it… the marriage is probably over. With all the Chinese media blowing things out of proportion, and so much scrutiny surrounding his wife, someone like him probably would throw in the towel. I know, I know… I should not have been so quick to judge. And I must say, I have been humbled.
He supported her throughout the entire incident. He shielded her through the entire saga. He did not say much, but his actions speak louder than words. At her lowest point, he was her rock and refuge.
Later, when things have blown over, Cecilia revealed in a TV interview that she was so scared when she found out about the photos leak, as she knew that her photos would eventually surface. And when she told Nicholas, he just told her, "Don't worry, I am here." And when Nicholas was later interviewed about the saga, he said, "When I married her, I already know what sort of woman she was…" I am so touched by his words and his actions because he is so absolutely sure about his own choice and his own decision. And even though the saga might have made him 'lose face' which is such a big thing with Chinese culture, he was totally unfazed by it!
He surprised me a second time with his love philosophy 爱情观. I caught one of his more recent interviews with one of the China's TV stations, and when asked about his love philosophy, he said, there are 4 stages when it comes to love.
1. Passion 激情
2. Romance 爱情
3. Family Love 亲情
4. Friendship 友情
And these are the four components of love 感情.
I am surprised not because there is anything wrong with what he has said. What he has said is what many relationship experts have been trying to share, but I just did not expect an artist, needless to say superstar like him to think that way! We often read about break-ups and divorces in the entertainment world especially Hollywood. And the reason is simple, as many of these relationships do not go past the first stage – Passion. I always describe passion like fireworks. It's absolutely beautiful, but it's also short-lived and it will fizzle out eventually.
I really liked what he said about the 4th stage. He said eventually, as the children grow, and you become old, it will turn into friendship. And at this point, some of the audience probably have expressions of disbelief, and the host told them to give him a chance to explain, since he is a 'person of experience'.
He said, ultimately, we are all looking for a companion.
I think many people usually miss this point. They don't understand that passion and romance do not last forever. So they choose their mate just based on the first two stages. And when they move on to the third and the fourth phase, the cracks start to show, because they are just simply not compatible. They have nothing to talk about. They actually do not even enjoy each other's company! I have heard of quite a lot of husbands or wives staying out as late as possible, or leaving the house as early as possible, as they want to spend as little time as possible with their spouse.
It is really wonderful that Nicholas Tse is sharing his love philosophy. My hope is that more of his impressionable fans would listen to him and subscribe to his philosophy.
Maybe Nic would succeed where many relationship gurus have failed. :)
Friday, June 25, 2010
The penniless founder of Dignitas 'now a multi-millionaire'
The founder of controversial Swiss suicide firm Dignitas has become a millionaire since setting up the group, a respected magazine has found.
Ludwig Minelli was virtually penniless when he founded the Swiss firm 12 years ago but was worth more than £1million by 2007, according to an investigation.
Although assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, it is against the law to profit financially from someone’s death.
The investigation by Swiss magazine Beobachter says Mr Minelli is 'skating on thin ice'.
The report, headlined Unexplained Wealth,asks: 'How could a 77-year-old pensioner amass so much wealth?'
It says the former journalist, who is also a qualified lawyer, had no assets in 1998 but is now worth a fortune and owns a large house near Zurich.
Accounting records obtained by the magazine claim to show Mr Minelli’s personal wealth reached almost two million Swiss francs (£1.2 million) by 2007.
His taxable income was 162,000 Swiss francs (£97,800) and his taxable assets were 1,998,000 Swiss francs (£1.2 million).
Organisations such as Dignitas are not obliged to publish full accounts so the magazine was unable to ascertain whether money had been transferred from the tax-free charity to Minelli.
Andreas Brunner, the state prosecutor in Zurich, said: 'A new law is needed that requires such organisations to explain every case. Exit and other big assisted suicide groups already do this voluntarily and unhesitatingly.
'We have never had a good look at the bookkeeping of Dignitas but in order to demand that we need a good reason and a concrete example that there is something suspicious to investigate.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1289217/Dignitas-founder-Ludwig-Minelli-multi-millionaire.html#ixzz0rqlu2j1f
The tax officials no doubt have a good idea what is there but they have no obligations to publish that. Mr Minelli has promised for years to make the accounts public but it has never happened.'
Of the 5,700 people in 61 countries worldwide who have registered with Dignitas for 200 Swiss francs (£121), 724 are British.
There is an annual fee of 86 Swiss francs (£52), and a charge of 3,000 Swiss francs (£1,815) if the person decides to progress their application.
This covers the preparation of a file for one of Dignitas's six affiliated doctors, who decides whether to prescribe the barbiturate for a pain-free death.
By the time the applicant dies, further costs will have brought the grand total to 10,500 Swiss francs (£6,352).
It has also been claimed that some patients give generous donations to Dignitas, such as £60,000 in one case, in addition to the official fees.
Mr Minelli reacted angrily to the magazine’s accusations, calling the journalist 'indecent'. He said part of his wealth came from an inheritance from his mother.
The probe is not the first to cast a shadow over the finances of Dignitas, which uses the slogan: ‘Live with dignity, die with dignity'.
One nurse who assisted 30 deaths during her two and a half years at the clinic said she was so disturbed by its activities that she quit her job.
Soraya Wernli, who left Dignitas in 2005, has spoken to police about her concerns, saying she is convinced Dignitas is a money-making machine.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1289217/Dignitas-founder-Ludwig-Minelli-multi-millionaire.html#ixzz0rqm05TXs
She said: 'I joined because I believed it was a good organisation which helped the terminally ill end their suffering but I came to realise it was really something different. It was all done for money.
'Minelli is the secretary general, the chief executive, half of the board of directors and the accountant, all wrapped into one. He has found a way to make a lot of money out of death and the fear of it.'
In an interview last year, when asked if he was acting illegally Mr Minelli said: 'If the state prosecutors feel I’m making myself rich they should start legal proceedings.'
Not all critics support the view that Dignitas is a cash cow.
One retired Swiss doctor, who is no fan of Mr Minelli, was quoted in 2008 saying: 'This man is not about money, it’s all about his power over life and death.
'He’s like the mythical ferryman of the Styx, taking people over to the other side. And what was the ferryman paid: a single coin?'
Dignitas is often at the centre of controversy. Last month details emerged of a patient suffering from paranoid schizophrenia who was given drugs to end his life.
And in April scores of urns containing human ashes and bearing the logo of a cremation service thought to be used by Dignitas were found dumped in Lake Zurich.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1289217/Dignitas-founder-Ludwig-Minelli-multi-millionaire.html#ixzz0rqm44hBf
Ludwig Minelli was virtually penniless when he founded the Swiss firm 12 years ago but was worth more than £1million by 2007, according to an investigation.
Although assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, it is against the law to profit financially from someone’s death.
The investigation by Swiss magazine Beobachter says Mr Minelli is 'skating on thin ice'.
The report, headlined Unexplained Wealth,asks: 'How could a 77-year-old pensioner amass so much wealth?'
It says the former journalist, who is also a qualified lawyer, had no assets in 1998 but is now worth a fortune and owns a large house near Zurich.
Accounting records obtained by the magazine claim to show Mr Minelli’s personal wealth reached almost two million Swiss francs (£1.2 million) by 2007.
His taxable income was 162,000 Swiss francs (£97,800) and his taxable assets were 1,998,000 Swiss francs (£1.2 million).
Organisations such as Dignitas are not obliged to publish full accounts so the magazine was unable to ascertain whether money had been transferred from the tax-free charity to Minelli.
Andreas Brunner, the state prosecutor in Zurich, said: 'A new law is needed that requires such organisations to explain every case. Exit and other big assisted suicide groups already do this voluntarily and unhesitatingly.
'We have never had a good look at the bookkeeping of Dignitas but in order to demand that we need a good reason and a concrete example that there is something suspicious to investigate.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1289217/Dignitas-founder-Ludwig-Minelli-multi-millionaire.html#ixzz0rqlu2j1f
The tax officials no doubt have a good idea what is there but they have no obligations to publish that. Mr Minelli has promised for years to make the accounts public but it has never happened.'
Of the 5,700 people in 61 countries worldwide who have registered with Dignitas for 200 Swiss francs (£121), 724 are British.
There is an annual fee of 86 Swiss francs (£52), and a charge of 3,000 Swiss francs (£1,815) if the person decides to progress their application.
This covers the preparation of a file for one of Dignitas's six affiliated doctors, who decides whether to prescribe the barbiturate for a pain-free death.
By the time the applicant dies, further costs will have brought the grand total to 10,500 Swiss francs (£6,352).
It has also been claimed that some patients give generous donations to Dignitas, such as £60,000 in one case, in addition to the official fees.
Mr Minelli reacted angrily to the magazine’s accusations, calling the journalist 'indecent'. He said part of his wealth came from an inheritance from his mother.
The probe is not the first to cast a shadow over the finances of Dignitas, which uses the slogan: ‘Live with dignity, die with dignity'.
One nurse who assisted 30 deaths during her two and a half years at the clinic said she was so disturbed by its activities that she quit her job.
Soraya Wernli, who left Dignitas in 2005, has spoken to police about her concerns, saying she is convinced Dignitas is a money-making machine.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1289217/Dignitas-founder-Ludwig-Minelli-multi-millionaire.html#ixzz0rqm05TXs
She said: 'I joined because I believed it was a good organisation which helped the terminally ill end their suffering but I came to realise it was really something different. It was all done for money.
'Minelli is the secretary general, the chief executive, half of the board of directors and the accountant, all wrapped into one. He has found a way to make a lot of money out of death and the fear of it.'
In an interview last year, when asked if he was acting illegally Mr Minelli said: 'If the state prosecutors feel I’m making myself rich they should start legal proceedings.'
Not all critics support the view that Dignitas is a cash cow.
One retired Swiss doctor, who is no fan of Mr Minelli, was quoted in 2008 saying: 'This man is not about money, it’s all about his power over life and death.
'He’s like the mythical ferryman of the Styx, taking people over to the other side. And what was the ferryman paid: a single coin?'
Dignitas is often at the centre of controversy. Last month details emerged of a patient suffering from paranoid schizophrenia who was given drugs to end his life.
And in April scores of urns containing human ashes and bearing the logo of a cremation service thought to be used by Dignitas were found dumped in Lake Zurich.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1289217/Dignitas-founder-Ludwig-Minelli-multi-millionaire.html#ixzz0rqm44hBf
Greece puts its islands up for sale to save economy
Desperate attempt to repay debts also driven by inability to find funds to develop infrastructure on islands
There's little that shouts "seriously rich" as much as a little island in the sun to call your own. For Sir Richard Branson it is Neckar in the Caribbean, the billionaire Barclay brothers prefer Brecqhou in the Channel Islands, while Aristotle Onassis married Jackie Kennedy on Skorpios, his Greek hideway.
Now Greece is making it easier for the rich and famous to fulfill their dreams by preparing to sell, or offering long-term leases on, some of its 6,000 sunkissed islands in a desperate attempt to repay its mountainous debts.
The Guardian has learned that an area in Mykonos, one of Greece's top tourist destinations, is one of the sites for sale. The area is one-third owned by the government, which is looking for a buyer willing to inject capital and develop a luxury tourism complex, according to a source close to the negotiations.
Potential investorsalso looking at property on the island of Rhodes, are mostly Russian and Chinese. Investors in both countries are looking for a little bit of the Mediterranean as holiday destinations for their increasingly affluent populations. Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea football club, is among those understood to be interested, although a spokesman denied he was about to invest.
Greece has embarked on the desperate measures after being pushed into a €110bn (£90bn) bailout by the EU and the IMF last month, following a decade of overspending and after jittery investors raised borrowing costs to unbearable levels.
The sale of an island – or convincing a member of the international jet-set to take on a long-term lease – would help to boost its coffers. The Private Islands website lists 1,235-acre Nafsika, in the Ionian sea, on sale for €15m. But others are on for less than €2m – less than a townhouse in Mayfair or Chelsea. Some of the country's numerous islands are tiny which could barely fit a single sunbed.
Only 227 Greek islands are populated and the decision to press ahead with potential sales has also been driven by the inability of the state to develop basic infrastructure, or police most of its islands. The hope is that the sale or long-term lease of some islands will attract investment that will generate jobs and taxable income.
"I am sad – selling off your islands or areas that belong to the people of Greece should be used as the last resort," said Makis Perdikaris, director of Greek Island Properties. "But the first thing is to develop the economy and attract foreign domestic investment to create the necessary infrastructure. The point is to get money." In its battle to raise funds, the country is also planning to sell its rail and water companies. Chinese investors are understood to be interested in the Greek train system, as they already control some of the ports. In a deal announced earlier this month, the Greek government also agreed to export olive oil to China.
After the socialist government of prime minister Geórgios Papandreou responded to the IMF bailout with draconian budget cuts, rioters took to the streets, costing three lives in May.
In the midst of the crisis, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, delayed her support as she faced local elections and popular opposition to any public-funded help to Greece.
As strikes almost paralysed the country and hedge funds bet against the economy, German politicians called for Greece to start selling islands, historic buildings and artworks. It now appears that the Greek government has heeded their demands.
The City, where investors are increasingly shunning Greek investments, welcomed any island sales. "It's a shame if it has come to this but it does at least demonstrate that Greece is prepared to take all actions necessary to try and meet its obligations," said Gary Jenkins, a credit analyst at Evolution Securities.
Property prices have fallen between 10% and 20% since the May riots in Athens, as bad publicity has drawn visitors away, Perdikaris said.
"We have experienced a very slow booking season. Most tour operators offer hugely discounted rates," he said. Britons account for more than 60% of his company's property sales.
There's little that shouts "seriously rich" as much as a little island in the sun to call your own. For Sir Richard Branson it is Neckar in the Caribbean, the billionaire Barclay brothers prefer Brecqhou in the Channel Islands, while Aristotle Onassis married Jackie Kennedy on Skorpios, his Greek hideway.
Now Greece is making it easier for the rich and famous to fulfill their dreams by preparing to sell, or offering long-term leases on, some of its 6,000 sunkissed islands in a desperate attempt to repay its mountainous debts.
The Guardian has learned that an area in Mykonos, one of Greece's top tourist destinations, is one of the sites for sale. The area is one-third owned by the government, which is looking for a buyer willing to inject capital and develop a luxury tourism complex, according to a source close to the negotiations.
Potential investorsalso looking at property on the island of Rhodes, are mostly Russian and Chinese. Investors in both countries are looking for a little bit of the Mediterranean as holiday destinations for their increasingly affluent populations. Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea football club, is among those understood to be interested, although a spokesman denied he was about to invest.
Greece has embarked on the desperate measures after being pushed into a €110bn (£90bn) bailout by the EU and the IMF last month, following a decade of overspending and after jittery investors raised borrowing costs to unbearable levels.
The sale of an island – or convincing a member of the international jet-set to take on a long-term lease – would help to boost its coffers. The Private Islands website lists 1,235-acre Nafsika, in the Ionian sea, on sale for €15m. But others are on for less than €2m – less than a townhouse in Mayfair or Chelsea. Some of the country's numerous islands are tiny which could barely fit a single sunbed.
Only 227 Greek islands are populated and the decision to press ahead with potential sales has also been driven by the inability of the state to develop basic infrastructure, or police most of its islands. The hope is that the sale or long-term lease of some islands will attract investment that will generate jobs and taxable income.
"I am sad – selling off your islands or areas that belong to the people of Greece should be used as the last resort," said Makis Perdikaris, director of Greek Island Properties. "But the first thing is to develop the economy and attract foreign domestic investment to create the necessary infrastructure. The point is to get money." In its battle to raise funds, the country is also planning to sell its rail and water companies. Chinese investors are understood to be interested in the Greek train system, as they already control some of the ports. In a deal announced earlier this month, the Greek government also agreed to export olive oil to China.
After the socialist government of prime minister Geórgios Papandreou responded to the IMF bailout with draconian budget cuts, rioters took to the streets, costing three lives in May.
In the midst of the crisis, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, delayed her support as she faced local elections and popular opposition to any public-funded help to Greece.
As strikes almost paralysed the country and hedge funds bet against the economy, German politicians called for Greece to start selling islands, historic buildings and artworks. It now appears that the Greek government has heeded their demands.
The City, where investors are increasingly shunning Greek investments, welcomed any island sales. "It's a shame if it has come to this but it does at least demonstrate that Greece is prepared to take all actions necessary to try and meet its obligations," said Gary Jenkins, a credit analyst at Evolution Securities.
Property prices have fallen between 10% and 20% since the May riots in Athens, as bad publicity has drawn visitors away, Perdikaris said.
"We have experienced a very slow booking season. Most tour operators offer hugely discounted rates," he said. Britons account for more than 60% of his company's property sales.
Tonight's Show: Self-Defense With Guns (12am Eastern on FBN)
It is nearly impossible to get a handgun for self-defense in my hometown of New York City. Here, if you want to keep a handgun in your home, you must pay $340 and fill out a 15- page application about why you want a handgun. It can be rejected for any reason. Want a realistic toy handgun? Banned. Want to carry a handgun on your person? Forget it.
Unfortunately, laws like that... kill people. No one knows that better than Suzanna Hupp, whose parents were murdered in a mass shooting at a Lubys restaurant in Texas. Here's what she told Congress:
This guy kept shooting... When I finally realized what was occurring I thought, "I got him!" And I reached for my purse. He was maybe twelve feet away...
But then I realized that a couple of months earlier I had made the stupidest decision of my life. I took my gun out of my purse and left it in my car. Because as you well know, in the state of Texas, it's sometimes a felony offense to carry a gun in your purse.
People in the restaurant tried to stop the shooting, but they were unarmed.
My father, at that point, said, "I've got to do something! He's going to kill everybody in here!" And he rushed the man.
No way. This guy turned and shot him in the chest. He went down; [he] was obviously mortally wounded...
When I saw what looked like an opportunity to escape, I turned around and I grabbed my mother by the shirt and I said, "Come on! Come on! We've got to run! We've got to get out of here!" And then my feet grew wings and I was out the back window. As soon as I got out, I realized that my mother had not followed me out... she had crawled over to where my father was and cradled him until the guy got back around to her, put the gun to her head, she looked up at him, put her head down and he pulled the trigger. My parents had just had their forty-seventh wedding anniversary. She wasn't going anywhere.
Remarkably, Suzanna is not angry at the murderer. She doesn’t want tougher gun laws.
I'm not really mad at the guy that did this and I'm certainly not mad at the guns that did this. They didn't walk in there by themselves and pull their own triggers. The guy that did it was a lunatic. That's like being mad at a rabid dog.
I'm mad at my legislators for legislating me out of the right to protect myself and my family. I would much rather be sitting in jail with a felony offense on my head and have my parents alive.
Suzanna's story, which she tells in a new book, "From Lubys to the Legislature," helped get Texas to pass a law allowing citizens to pack heat.
Odds are, that law saved lives. Here is a graph, from More Guns, Less Crime, on the effect of concealed carry laws on mass shootings:
Giving citizens the right to carry concealed weapons is especially helpful in preventing mass shootings, because when there are many intended victims, it is likely that someone there will have a concealed weapon to stop the attack.
Tonight on my show, I interview Suzanna Hupp and others with gun self-defense stories.
Unfortunately, laws like that... kill people. No one knows that better than Suzanna Hupp, whose parents were murdered in a mass shooting at a Lubys restaurant in Texas. Here's what she told Congress:
This guy kept shooting... When I finally realized what was occurring I thought, "I got him!" And I reached for my purse. He was maybe twelve feet away...
But then I realized that a couple of months earlier I had made the stupidest decision of my life. I took my gun out of my purse and left it in my car. Because as you well know, in the state of Texas, it's sometimes a felony offense to carry a gun in your purse.
People in the restaurant tried to stop the shooting, but they were unarmed.
My father, at that point, said, "I've got to do something! He's going to kill everybody in here!" And he rushed the man.
No way. This guy turned and shot him in the chest. He went down; [he] was obviously mortally wounded...
When I saw what looked like an opportunity to escape, I turned around and I grabbed my mother by the shirt and I said, "Come on! Come on! We've got to run! We've got to get out of here!" And then my feet grew wings and I was out the back window. As soon as I got out, I realized that my mother had not followed me out... she had crawled over to where my father was and cradled him until the guy got back around to her, put the gun to her head, she looked up at him, put her head down and he pulled the trigger. My parents had just had their forty-seventh wedding anniversary. She wasn't going anywhere.
Remarkably, Suzanna is not angry at the murderer. She doesn’t want tougher gun laws.
I'm not really mad at the guy that did this and I'm certainly not mad at the guns that did this. They didn't walk in there by themselves and pull their own triggers. The guy that did it was a lunatic. That's like being mad at a rabid dog.
I'm mad at my legislators for legislating me out of the right to protect myself and my family. I would much rather be sitting in jail with a felony offense on my head and have my parents alive.
Suzanna's story, which she tells in a new book, "From Lubys to the Legislature," helped get Texas to pass a law allowing citizens to pack heat.
Odds are, that law saved lives. Here is a graph, from More Guns, Less Crime, on the effect of concealed carry laws on mass shootings:
Giving citizens the right to carry concealed weapons is especially helpful in preventing mass shootings, because when there are many intended victims, it is likely that someone there will have a concealed weapon to stop the attack.
Tonight on my show, I interview Suzanna Hupp and others with gun self-defense stories.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
McChrystal / Rolling Stone Interview: Obama Will Be The Only Loser
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The mindset of a property millionaire
By Sherry Koh | June 21, 2010
19 properties in Malaysia. 1 property in Singapore. Properties worth more than RM22 million. Five-figure positive cash flow. Those figures belong to Milan Doshi, a property and stock investment guru who have made his millions over a course of more than 20 years. In his recent Property Intensive workshop, Doshi posted an interesting question, “Which would you rather be? A debt-free beggar or a financially free billionaire?”
For most people, the answer would be the latter but they might be doing the opposite, which is to earn as much as possible to pay off debts. Doshi highlighted that the old school of thinking is to not borrow money or borrow as little as possible and return it soonest possible. His thinking is, “The more you borrow, the richer you get.”
He also advises investors to analyse the advisor before analysing the advice. For example, one might make the mistake of taking financial advice from people who sell investment products rather from successful investors. He also said that it is likened to getting advice from university professors who might not have personally put the theories they teach to the test in the real life situations.
He also said not to be deceived by looks as some people who are poorly dressed are rich and vice versa, which explains why Doshi was simply dressed in a t-shirt and pants.
These are some highlights from a handout that Doshi shared in his property intensive preview.
• Have a firm idea on your financial goals. Otherwise, you won’t know which direction to head to. Some examples of financial goals include knowing the number of properties to invest in, your desired passive income, investment strategies you want to apply, and so on.
• Individuals who are less than 35 years old should focus on maximising their earning potential as they are at the prime of earning age.
• Invest in low-risk commercial properties that give high returns of over 8% per annum, with low entry costs.
• For beginners, it’s advisable to start investing in apartments of condominiums as it’s easy to achieve zero or positive cash flow every month, as compared to landed house.
• When you get married, you buy a dream home right away. Instead, it makes more sense to buy an investment property and rent a home for the first 10 to 15 years of your married life.
• Instead of buying costly high-end residential properties, you could invest in commercial properties that give the best of both rental returns and capital appreciation.
• It’s always worthwhile to pay a premium and buy the best properties in great locations.
• Savvy investors creatively buy one property a rear or even one every few months with little or no-money-down.
• Most people’s financial goal is to retire debt-free at age 65. Smart investors aim to retire at age 45 or earlier, by accumulating good debts of at least RM3 million via property investments.
• You focus on hitting a certain net worth instead of generating passive income. For example, when you retire debt-free, you must have RM1.8 million in fixed deposit at 2% per annum in order to get RM3,000 per month. Instead, one might be able to get the same amount of passive income by investing RM500,000 in properties.
Upcoming property investment talk/workshop by Doshi
1. One-day Real Estate Investment Congress
Doshi will be conducting the one-day Real Estate Investment Congress on June 27, 2010 in Penang and July 4, 2010 in Kuala Lumpur. Two of Doshi’s past students – Nancy Ng and Prudence Wong – will be sharing their success stories. Both are property millionaires with more than RM10 million in loans and earning a five-figure passive income from rentals each. Participants may e-mail questions to the speakers before the event and the speakers will select the questions to be answered.
• Click here or call 019-572 8898 / 017-966 6178 to sign up for Doshi’s one-day Real Estate Investment Congress.
2. Three-day property investment programme
For the three-day property investment programme, Doshi said in a previous interview, “I actually spend one whole day on personal money management because a lot of people are managing their money wrongly. They are not going to optimise or get the best out of properties.
“The first day is on money management and the second day is on property investment. The third day is spent on property negotiation and I also talk about stock market for about two hours. For the stock market, I teach three basic "no-brainer" strategies. Because of increased volatility today, the stock market will give you, at a minimum, two to three opportunities per year, where you can make 10 to 15% in six months or less. So why not learn it? And all you need is plain common sense. We also spend the last two hours on case studies based on three volunteers from the workshop.”
• Click here or call 019-572 8898 / 017-966 6178 to sign up for Doshi’s three-hour preview, which highlights the topics that will be covered in the full three-day property investment workshop.
19 properties in Malaysia. 1 property in Singapore. Properties worth more than RM22 million. Five-figure positive cash flow. Those figures belong to Milan Doshi, a property and stock investment guru who have made his millions over a course of more than 20 years. In his recent Property Intensive workshop, Doshi posted an interesting question, “Which would you rather be? A debt-free beggar or a financially free billionaire?”
For most people, the answer would be the latter but they might be doing the opposite, which is to earn as much as possible to pay off debts. Doshi highlighted that the old school of thinking is to not borrow money or borrow as little as possible and return it soonest possible. His thinking is, “The more you borrow, the richer you get.”
He also advises investors to analyse the advisor before analysing the advice. For example, one might make the mistake of taking financial advice from people who sell investment products rather from successful investors. He also said that it is likened to getting advice from university professors who might not have personally put the theories they teach to the test in the real life situations.
He also said not to be deceived by looks as some people who are poorly dressed are rich and vice versa, which explains why Doshi was simply dressed in a t-shirt and pants.
These are some highlights from a handout that Doshi shared in his property intensive preview.
• Have a firm idea on your financial goals. Otherwise, you won’t know which direction to head to. Some examples of financial goals include knowing the number of properties to invest in, your desired passive income, investment strategies you want to apply, and so on.
• Individuals who are less than 35 years old should focus on maximising their earning potential as they are at the prime of earning age.
• Invest in low-risk commercial properties that give high returns of over 8% per annum, with low entry costs.
• For beginners, it’s advisable to start investing in apartments of condominiums as it’s easy to achieve zero or positive cash flow every month, as compared to landed house.
• When you get married, you buy a dream home right away. Instead, it makes more sense to buy an investment property and rent a home for the first 10 to 15 years of your married life.
• Instead of buying costly high-end residential properties, you could invest in commercial properties that give the best of both rental returns and capital appreciation.
• It’s always worthwhile to pay a premium and buy the best properties in great locations.
• Savvy investors creatively buy one property a rear or even one every few months with little or no-money-down.
• Most people’s financial goal is to retire debt-free at age 65. Smart investors aim to retire at age 45 or earlier, by accumulating good debts of at least RM3 million via property investments.
• You focus on hitting a certain net worth instead of generating passive income. For example, when you retire debt-free, you must have RM1.8 million in fixed deposit at 2% per annum in order to get RM3,000 per month. Instead, one might be able to get the same amount of passive income by investing RM500,000 in properties.
Upcoming property investment talk/workshop by Doshi
1. One-day Real Estate Investment Congress
Doshi will be conducting the one-day Real Estate Investment Congress on June 27, 2010 in Penang and July 4, 2010 in Kuala Lumpur. Two of Doshi’s past students – Nancy Ng and Prudence Wong – will be sharing their success stories. Both are property millionaires with more than RM10 million in loans and earning a five-figure passive income from rentals each. Participants may e-mail questions to the speakers before the event and the speakers will select the questions to be answered.
• Click here or call 019-572 8898 / 017-966 6178 to sign up for Doshi’s one-day Real Estate Investment Congress.
2. Three-day property investment programme
For the three-day property investment programme, Doshi said in a previous interview, “I actually spend one whole day on personal money management because a lot of people are managing their money wrongly. They are not going to optimise or get the best out of properties.
“The first day is on money management and the second day is on property investment. The third day is spent on property negotiation and I also talk about stock market for about two hours. For the stock market, I teach three basic "no-brainer" strategies. Because of increased volatility today, the stock market will give you, at a minimum, two to three opportunities per year, where you can make 10 to 15% in six months or less. So why not learn it? And all you need is plain common sense. We also spend the last two hours on case studies based on three volunteers from the workshop.”
• Click here or call 019-572 8898 / 017-966 6178 to sign up for Doshi’s three-hour preview, which highlights the topics that will be covered in the full three-day property investment workshop.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Authorities begin tearing down historic Malaysian jail
Malaysian authorities Monday began tearing down part of a historic 115-year-old jail where Allied prisoners-of-war were held by the Japanese despite fierce criticism from heritage enthusiasts.
Critics of the controversial redevelopment plan say Pudu jail, which sits on prime land in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, should be preserved because of its heritage and tourism value.
Heavy diggers began demolishing a huge segment of the 394-metre-long (1,300-foot) wall surrounding the Victorian-era jail Monday night, to make way for road expansion.
During World War II, Japanese occupation forces used the jail to hold Allied prisoners-of-war, many of whom were tortured and executed there, but Malaysia's government has said Pudu does not qualify for heritage status.
"The government has studied the matter and decided that the site is not a heritage site and will not be made a heritage site," Deputy Finance Minister Awang Adek told lawmakers Monday.
"The government is of the opinion that it is not something we can be proud of, there may be many (other) things we can be proud of compared with a jail," Awang added.
He said government-linked property group UDA Holdings would develop the site, with hotels and apartments to be built over a 10-year period beginning 2011.
More than 300 activists and nearby residents turned up to see the demolition of the wall which began at 10:20 pm under flood lights and cordoned off for public safety.
However, with only a small portion of the mural-covered wall demolished, workers were forced to halt as onlookers broke through the cordon to get a better look with some climbing atop the rubble to take photographs or collect a souvenir.
"I came here to get a piece of the jail because even if the government doesn't value this historic site, I want to keep part of it for my children and grandchildren," schoolteacher Thomas Ng, 45, told AFP.
Noorshikin Rashid, 68, turned up with her four grandchildren to get a last look at the jail.
"I grew up with the prison in my neighbourhood and it's been there my whole life so it is sad to see such a historic building go," she told AFP.
Lawmaker Fong Kui Lun, in whose constituency the prison is located, lamented the decision not to preserve the complex.
"It is a shame as we keep losing our history every time such buildings are torn down," he told reporters.
Historians were also angry, saying at least part of the jail should be preserved.
"There are many other places in Kuala Lumpur that can be redeveloped for commercial and residential purposes but there is only one historic prison with such significance," Singapore-based military historian Brian Farrell told AFP.
Malaysian heritage board chairman Ahmad Sarji told AFP some semblance of the prison should remain even if the rest of the building was to be torn down.
"The prison has heritage significance so at least preserve the facade of the entrance, which can dovetail with whatever is being built there," he said.
Former Australian prisoner-of-war Charles Edwards told AFP in 2008 that Pudu jail should be preserved.
Edwards was a private in the Australian 8th Division, part of Commonwealth forces that defended Malaya, as it was then known, at the outset of the 1939-1945 war.
He was captured by the Japanese and endured torture and deprivation while being held at Pudu along with thousands of other prisoners-of-war.
After the war Pudu continued to be used as a prison and in July 1986 Briton Kevin Barlow and Australian Brian Chambers were hanged there, the first Westerners to be executed under Malaysia's anti-narcotics laws.
Pudu, built in 1895, was closed in 1996 to make way for a prison museum which shut in 2005. It was then used as a holding centre for prisoners undergoing trial before closing in 2008.
Critics of the controversial redevelopment plan say Pudu jail, which sits on prime land in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, should be preserved because of its heritage and tourism value.
Heavy diggers began demolishing a huge segment of the 394-metre-long (1,300-foot) wall surrounding the Victorian-era jail Monday night, to make way for road expansion.
During World War II, Japanese occupation forces used the jail to hold Allied prisoners-of-war, many of whom were tortured and executed there, but Malaysia's government has said Pudu does not qualify for heritage status.
"The government has studied the matter and decided that the site is not a heritage site and will not be made a heritage site," Deputy Finance Minister Awang Adek told lawmakers Monday.
"The government is of the opinion that it is not something we can be proud of, there may be many (other) things we can be proud of compared with a jail," Awang added.
He said government-linked property group UDA Holdings would develop the site, with hotels and apartments to be built over a 10-year period beginning 2011.
More than 300 activists and nearby residents turned up to see the demolition of the wall which began at 10:20 pm under flood lights and cordoned off for public safety.
However, with only a small portion of the mural-covered wall demolished, workers were forced to halt as onlookers broke through the cordon to get a better look with some climbing atop the rubble to take photographs or collect a souvenir.
"I came here to get a piece of the jail because even if the government doesn't value this historic site, I want to keep part of it for my children and grandchildren," schoolteacher Thomas Ng, 45, told AFP.
Noorshikin Rashid, 68, turned up with her four grandchildren to get a last look at the jail.
"I grew up with the prison in my neighbourhood and it's been there my whole life so it is sad to see such a historic building go," she told AFP.
Lawmaker Fong Kui Lun, in whose constituency the prison is located, lamented the decision not to preserve the complex.
"It is a shame as we keep losing our history every time such buildings are torn down," he told reporters.
Historians were also angry, saying at least part of the jail should be preserved.
"There are many other places in Kuala Lumpur that can be redeveloped for commercial and residential purposes but there is only one historic prison with such significance," Singapore-based military historian Brian Farrell told AFP.
Malaysian heritage board chairman Ahmad Sarji told AFP some semblance of the prison should remain even if the rest of the building was to be torn down.
"The prison has heritage significance so at least preserve the facade of the entrance, which can dovetail with whatever is being built there," he said.
Former Australian prisoner-of-war Charles Edwards told AFP in 2008 that Pudu jail should be preserved.
Edwards was a private in the Australian 8th Division, part of Commonwealth forces that defended Malaya, as it was then known, at the outset of the 1939-1945 war.
He was captured by the Japanese and endured torture and deprivation while being held at Pudu along with thousands of other prisoners-of-war.
After the war Pudu continued to be used as a prison and in July 1986 Briton Kevin Barlow and Australian Brian Chambers were hanged there, the first Westerners to be executed under Malaysia's anti-narcotics laws.
Pudu, built in 1895, was closed in 1996 to make way for a prison museum which shut in 2005. It was then used as a holding centre for prisoners undergoing trial before closing in 2008.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Belgian Bishops have opened their churches to illegal immigrants
In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: Who lost Europe ?’
Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing.
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. There are mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam , Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear ‘whore, whore’. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin . The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.
In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya , Israel . I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators ‘settlers’, because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam ‘the most retrograde force in the world’, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines , Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan , Lebanon , and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe ‘s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.
Please take the time to read and understand what is written here. Please send it to every free person that you know, it is so very important.
—
Frank Collins
NoHo London Music Hall
10620 Magnolia Blvd.
N. Hollywood, CA. 91601
PH #: 818.762.7883
Fax #: 818.762.1631
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2538233/posts
Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands , at the Four Seasons, New York , introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe . Then, I will say a few things about Islam. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .
The Europe you know is changing.
You have probably seen the landmarks. But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.
All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. There are mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe . These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe , street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe . With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam , Marseille and Malmo in Sweden . In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.
In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.
Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear ‘whore, whore’. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.
In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin . The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.
In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels , because he was drinking during the Ramadan.
Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya , Israel . I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe . San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France . One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate. Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’. And this is how we give them respect. We have Muslim official state holidays.
The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators ‘settlers’, because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.
Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam ‘the most retrograde force in the world’, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel . First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines , Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan , Lebanon , and Aceh in Indonesia . Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel . It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel , Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel , they can get everything. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. In my country, the Netherlands , 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome , Athens and Jerusalem .
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe ‘s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.
Please take the time to read and understand what is written here. Please send it to every free person that you know, it is so very important.
—
Frank Collins
NoHo London Music Hall
10620 Magnolia Blvd.
N. Hollywood, CA. 91601
PH #: 818.762.7883
Fax #: 818.762.1631
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2538233/posts
Doctor's Office Closes Up Shop Without Warning
Laura Wojcik's little girl, Elizabeth, is due Saturday. So imagine her surprise when she learned she'd have to find another doctor for the delivery and find one in just one day.
"I was pretty upset because I love going here and everything. They're good doctors, and then I had to change," said Wojcik.
A doctor from the Norwich OB-GYN Group will be on call this weekend, but inside the office, the waiting room is empty, and there are no doctors in the exam rooms. The office stopped taking patients Thursday when it decided it could no longer meet the financial demands of running the practice.
"We've had a reduction in reimbursement from the state-funded insurances, because the budget situation, things had slowed down, so April, May were very slow, and June continued to be slow," said Bernadette Grecki, the practice administrator.
Add to that the payments from the largest state-funded insurance provider wouldn't be arriving till July, and the office says it had no choice but to close.
"It was too much for the doctor. He realized he couldn't keep funding the practice," said Grecki.
The group says it is working with other OB-GYN's in the area to accommodate patients, and the files of pregnant patients who are at 32 weeks or more have already been transferred to Backus Hospital, so doctors will be prepared when the women go into labor.
"We'll be able to provide them the care that they need, being able to take a look at their medical history, assess any special needs they may have," said Keith Fontaine, Chief Communications Officer at Backus Hospital.
Even though the office isn't seeing patients, it will be open for the next three months with staff available to answer any patient questions, give referrals and to make sure patients have access to their records.
First Published: Jun 18, 2010 9:40 PM EDT
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2538221/posts
"I was pretty upset because I love going here and everything. They're good doctors, and then I had to change," said Wojcik.
A doctor from the Norwich OB-GYN Group will be on call this weekend, but inside the office, the waiting room is empty, and there are no doctors in the exam rooms. The office stopped taking patients Thursday when it decided it could no longer meet the financial demands of running the practice.
"We've had a reduction in reimbursement from the state-funded insurances, because the budget situation, things had slowed down, so April, May were very slow, and June continued to be slow," said Bernadette Grecki, the practice administrator.
Add to that the payments from the largest state-funded insurance provider wouldn't be arriving till July, and the office says it had no choice but to close.
"It was too much for the doctor. He realized he couldn't keep funding the practice," said Grecki.
The group says it is working with other OB-GYN's in the area to accommodate patients, and the files of pregnant patients who are at 32 weeks or more have already been transferred to Backus Hospital, so doctors will be prepared when the women go into labor.
"We'll be able to provide them the care that they need, being able to take a look at their medical history, assess any special needs they may have," said Keith Fontaine, Chief Communications Officer at Backus Hospital.
Even though the office isn't seeing patients, it will be open for the next three months with staff available to answer any patient questions, give referrals and to make sure patients have access to their records.
First Published: Jun 18, 2010 9:40 PM EDT
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2538221/posts
Chicago Police Chief Struggles to Justify Daley Gun Ban
-By Warner Todd Huston
Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader had an interesting report on a recent press conference held by Chicago’s Police Chief, Jody Weis. Dumke said that during the presser Weis struggled to “explain how the gun ban is working” for Chicago. In other words, Weis was at a loss to prove that Daley’s unconstitutional actions are working to make the city safer.
According to Dumke the conference went from discussions of how Weis has taken “3,513 weapons” off the streets, that they are using “analytics” to determine where the crime hotspots are in the city, moving on to the claim that the city has a lower over all crime rating, yet to the ultimate fact that even with all this the death toll is still higher than other cities. “Homicides continue to challenge us,” Weis said.
How one goes from claiming that the Mayor’s gun ban is effective yet the murder rate is still so high is anybody’s guess. And that is just the thing, isn’t it? Assaults are up 2.4 percent over last year. Obviously the supposed gun ban is not effective at all if it were this murder rate would be nonexistent.
But, Weis is in an untenable position, we all know. Here he is forced to try and play the happy mouth piece for his political patron something he knows darn well is impossible to justify. But that’s politics, isn’t it? It isn’t about police work or the safety of the people of Chicago, it’s about covering for his boss’s bad political plans.
It’s a pretty shameful display of politics a usual.
Naturally, Weis is stuck trying to shore up Daley’s unconstitutional gun grab because the city soon faces a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that might invalidate the its gun banning policies.
So, instead of dealing with the failures honestly, Weis has to do a humiliating tap dance in front of the press.
Yep, politics as usual.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader had an interesting report on a recent press conference held by Chicago’s Police Chief, Jody Weis. Dumke said that during the presser Weis struggled to “explain how the gun ban is working” for Chicago. In other words, Weis was at a loss to prove that Daley’s unconstitutional actions are working to make the city safer.
According to Dumke the conference went from discussions of how Weis has taken “3,513 weapons” off the streets, that they are using “analytics” to determine where the crime hotspots are in the city, moving on to the claim that the city has a lower over all crime rating, yet to the ultimate fact that even with all this the death toll is still higher than other cities. “Homicides continue to challenge us,” Weis said.
How one goes from claiming that the Mayor’s gun ban is effective yet the murder rate is still so high is anybody’s guess. And that is just the thing, isn’t it? Assaults are up 2.4 percent over last year. Obviously the supposed gun ban is not effective at all if it were this murder rate would be nonexistent.
But, Weis is in an untenable position, we all know. Here he is forced to try and play the happy mouth piece for his political patron something he knows darn well is impossible to justify. But that’s politics, isn’t it? It isn’t about police work or the safety of the people of Chicago, it’s about covering for his boss’s bad political plans.
It’s a pretty shameful display of politics a usual.
Naturally, Weis is stuck trying to shore up Daley’s unconstitutional gun grab because the city soon faces a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that might invalidate the its gun banning policies.
So, instead of dealing with the failures honestly, Weis has to do a humiliating tap dance in front of the press.
Yep, politics as usual.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Muslim American Society responds to Staten Island pastor's bid to cancel sale of convent
Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2010 10:25:26 AM by Free ThinkerNY
Staten Island, N.Y. -- The Muslin American Society, in the name of the Muslim community, has issued a response to the bid by the Rev. Keith Fennessy of St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church, Midland Beach, to undo the sale of the parish's vacant convent to the MAS, which would build a mosque at the site.
The MAS response is dated today and bears a Washington dateline.
The text reads as follows:
In reference to Rev. Keith Fennessy's letter withdrawing his support for the mosque purchase sale in Staten Island, N.Y., we feel strongly that much of what is taking place now is being driven by fear and hysteria, with some of it being stirred up by professional groups that have a history of being prejudiced against Muslims. We are American citizens and we love our country. We do not operate as an extension of any non-American religious or political organization. What have we done wrong to cause anyone to deny us the right to build a house of worship?
Nevertheless, we believe in the good will of the Catholic community leaders, and that ultimately they will do the right thing and allow this sale to be completed. We know that the Catholic community in the past has endured some of the same prejudice and fear mongering that we, as Muslims, are now facing. What should we tell our children? That as Muslims we are second class citizens without religious and civil rights? Or that the 1st and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution become void merely because you are an American Muslim?
To: Free ThinkerNY
Here is a letter to the editor I wrote, after our community sucessfully ran off a bunch of Muslims who wanted to build the Southeast Islamic Center about 2 miles from my house. We had a big city fight but the people prevailed and the permit to build was not granted to the Muslims.
The editor of the paper was lamenting for the “displaced” muslims that they wouldn’t be able to have a short drive to their worship center as she and her children enjoy this close proximity to their church.
I address this point to open my comments.
By: ThirtyYearResident on 5/21/10
Susan, I’ve been looking for an appropriate time to publically say how much I LOVE this online newspaper. As a 30 year resident of Brentwood I appreciate this paper’s accessiblity but that is not why I am writing. After reading your column on the Islamic Center, it struck me how naive Americans really are and how others take advantage of our goodness.
What you did was equate your religious experience with a Muslim family’s religious experience. That is a definite apples and oranges comparison. Before anyone can make a
valid asessment of Islam,it is imperative that you have a complete working knowledge of Islam and Sharia Law. Without that you are at best naive and at worst dangerous. Our Brentwood community was about to become the largest Southeastern Islamic Center. Did you look into the Dearborn, Michigan situation where the Muslims made Dearborn the largest Islamic Center in the North? Dearborn Michigan is no longer recognizable as an American city that it once was. Did you want that for Brentwood? If everyone would just read what Sharia Law is, you would run from this “religion” and not want your children to be exposed to such an anti American, anti Constitutional system of religious government that all Muslims live under. It is very discrimnatory and non tolerant. I will post a few of the Sharia Law precepts and then ask yourself, Do you really want your children to be exposed to a people who embrace these laws?
Under Sharia law:
· There is no freedom of religion
· There is no freedom of speech
· There is no freedom of thought
· There is no freedom of artistic expression
· There is no freedom of the press
· There is no equality of peoples-a non-Muslim, a Kafir, is never equal to a Muslim
· There are no equal rights for women
· Women can be beaten
· A non-Muslim cannot bear arms
· There is no equal protection under Sharia for different classes of people. Justice is dualistic, with one set of laws for Muslim males and different laws for women and non-Muslims.
· Our Constitution is a man-made document of ignorance, jahiliyah, that must submit to Sharia
· There is no democracy, since that means that a non-Muslim is equal to a Muslim
· Non-Muslims are dhimmis, third-class citizens
· There is no Golden Rule
· There is no critical thought
· All governments must be ruled by Sharia law
As Christians are expected to go into the world and proclaim the Gospel so to Muslims are to spread their religion which is based on the aforementioned laws. Thanks but no thanks, I don’t want to help or encourage a religion that will take away my American freedom.
It was Christians praying and walking the Wilson Pike property praying that kept this Islamic Center pushed back but if they can I am sure they will be back. Hopefully those with the power of influence will research Islam and be more knowledgeable about it’s precepts.
Staten Island, N.Y. -- The Muslin American Society, in the name of the Muslim community, has issued a response to the bid by the Rev. Keith Fennessy of St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church, Midland Beach, to undo the sale of the parish's vacant convent to the MAS, which would build a mosque at the site.
The MAS response is dated today and bears a Washington dateline.
The text reads as follows:
In reference to Rev. Keith Fennessy's letter withdrawing his support for the mosque purchase sale in Staten Island, N.Y., we feel strongly that much of what is taking place now is being driven by fear and hysteria, with some of it being stirred up by professional groups that have a history of being prejudiced against Muslims. We are American citizens and we love our country. We do not operate as an extension of any non-American religious or political organization. What have we done wrong to cause anyone to deny us the right to build a house of worship?
Nevertheless, we believe in the good will of the Catholic community leaders, and that ultimately they will do the right thing and allow this sale to be completed. We know that the Catholic community in the past has endured some of the same prejudice and fear mongering that we, as Muslims, are now facing. What should we tell our children? That as Muslims we are second class citizens without religious and civil rights? Or that the 1st and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution become void merely because you are an American Muslim?
To: Free ThinkerNY
Here is a letter to the editor I wrote, after our community sucessfully ran off a bunch of Muslims who wanted to build the Southeast Islamic Center about 2 miles from my house. We had a big city fight but the people prevailed and the permit to build was not granted to the Muslims.
The editor of the paper was lamenting for the “displaced” muslims that they wouldn’t be able to have a short drive to their worship center as she and her children enjoy this close proximity to their church.
I address this point to open my comments.
By: ThirtyYearResident on 5/21/10
Susan, I’ve been looking for an appropriate time to publically say how much I LOVE this online newspaper. As a 30 year resident of Brentwood I appreciate this paper’s accessiblity but that is not why I am writing. After reading your column on the Islamic Center, it struck me how naive Americans really are and how others take advantage of our goodness.
What you did was equate your religious experience with a Muslim family’s religious experience. That is a definite apples and oranges comparison. Before anyone can make a
valid asessment of Islam,it is imperative that you have a complete working knowledge of Islam and Sharia Law. Without that you are at best naive and at worst dangerous. Our Brentwood community was about to become the largest Southeastern Islamic Center. Did you look into the Dearborn, Michigan situation where the Muslims made Dearborn the largest Islamic Center in the North? Dearborn Michigan is no longer recognizable as an American city that it once was. Did you want that for Brentwood? If everyone would just read what Sharia Law is, you would run from this “religion” and not want your children to be exposed to such an anti American, anti Constitutional system of religious government that all Muslims live under. It is very discrimnatory and non tolerant. I will post a few of the Sharia Law precepts and then ask yourself, Do you really want your children to be exposed to a people who embrace these laws?
Under Sharia law:
· There is no freedom of religion
· There is no freedom of speech
· There is no freedom of thought
· There is no freedom of artistic expression
· There is no freedom of the press
· There is no equality of peoples-a non-Muslim, a Kafir, is never equal to a Muslim
· There are no equal rights for women
· Women can be beaten
· A non-Muslim cannot bear arms
· There is no equal protection under Sharia for different classes of people. Justice is dualistic, with one set of laws for Muslim males and different laws for women and non-Muslims.
· Our Constitution is a man-made document of ignorance, jahiliyah, that must submit to Sharia
· There is no democracy, since that means that a non-Muslim is equal to a Muslim
· Non-Muslims are dhimmis, third-class citizens
· There is no Golden Rule
· There is no critical thought
· All governments must be ruled by Sharia law
As Christians are expected to go into the world and proclaim the Gospel so to Muslims are to spread their religion which is based on the aforementioned laws. Thanks but no thanks, I don’t want to help or encourage a religion that will take away my American freedom.
It was Christians praying and walking the Wilson Pike property praying that kept this Islamic Center pushed back but if they can I am sure they will be back. Hopefully those with the power of influence will research Islam and be more knowledgeable about it’s precepts.
Pop Wedding Singer Dances to the Beat of His Own Conscience
Posted by: Wordsmith @ 4:51 pm in Celebrity Idiots
In the world of self-righteous celebrity know-nothings and Hollywood learjet liberals who have never met a leftwing cause they didn’t collectively embrace with the group-herd instinct, Elton John is a refreshing voice of independent thinking.
Is he liberal? I’m sure he is. But he’s not your typical Hollywood elitist:
Fresh off a gig as Rush Limbaugh’s wedding singer, the British icon performed Thursday in Tel Aviv, despite pressure from pro-Palestinian activists and fellow artists to boycott Israel following the flotilla debacle off the coast of Gaza.
“Shalom, we are so happy to be back here! Ain’t nothing gonna stop us from coming, baby,” John said with a fist in the air.
The piano man then took a swipe at those artists, including Elvis Costello, Santana, the Pixies and Devendra Banhart, who have bailed on concerts in recent weeks.
“Musicians spread love and peace, and bring people together. That’s what we do,” he said. “We don’t cherry-pick our conscience.”
Good for him! Am I saying that because politically I don’t stand opposed to Israel and the Flotilla ambush? Probably…
…and yet…
If the shoe were on the other foot and a known Hollywood conservative sang at Al Gore’s next wedding, as far as I’d be concerned, that would be his perogative. If he wanted to sing for the Palestinian people, that’s his business.
John recently caused a stir when he played a secret show at Limbaugh’s June 5 wedding. The gay icon caught some flack for the performance, which netted him a reported $1 million paycheck from the radio commentator, who strongly opposes gay marriage and has a history of negative comments about homosexuality.
“It betrays either ignorance or self-interest or both, and jeopardizes his admirable record on gay rights,” Aaron Hicklin, Editor-in-Chief of Out, told PopEater at the time.
John’s longtime partner, David Furnish, said the singer was “a little surprised” to get the invitation, but accepted the job after deciding “Life is about building bridges, not walls.”
The singer said Limbaugh and his bride, Kathryn Rogers, “were incredibly gracious and very welcoming and very sweet and very appreciative.”
Is it possible to oppose the redefinition of traditional marriage and not be homophobic? Considering Rush invited an out-of-the-closet gay singer to his wedding, I’d say, “Yes.
Is it possible to oppose the redefinition of traditional marriage, and still be an advocate of gay rights? Yes, it is.
Is it possible to find disagreement with others politically and still treat one another with courtesy, civility, and respect? If Elton John and Rush Limbaugh are an indication, I’d say “yes”.
Is it possible to set aside partisan politics when it comes to arts and entertainment? Yes.
Problems arise, however, when one intentionally mixes the two and uses the one as a springboard platform to launch into the other. If you’re going to do that, don’t be surprised if you experience a backlash and alienate one half of your potential fanbase.
In the world of self-righteous celebrity know-nothings and Hollywood learjet liberals who have never met a leftwing cause they didn’t collectively embrace with the group-herd instinct, Elton John is a refreshing voice of independent thinking.
Is he liberal? I’m sure he is. But he’s not your typical Hollywood elitist:
Fresh off a gig as Rush Limbaugh’s wedding singer, the British icon performed Thursday in Tel Aviv, despite pressure from pro-Palestinian activists and fellow artists to boycott Israel following the flotilla debacle off the coast of Gaza.
“Shalom, we are so happy to be back here! Ain’t nothing gonna stop us from coming, baby,” John said with a fist in the air.
The piano man then took a swipe at those artists, including Elvis Costello, Santana, the Pixies and Devendra Banhart, who have bailed on concerts in recent weeks.
“Musicians spread love and peace, and bring people together. That’s what we do,” he said. “We don’t cherry-pick our conscience.”
Good for him! Am I saying that because politically I don’t stand opposed to Israel and the Flotilla ambush? Probably…
…and yet…
If the shoe were on the other foot and a known Hollywood conservative sang at Al Gore’s next wedding, as far as I’d be concerned, that would be his perogative. If he wanted to sing for the Palestinian people, that’s his business.
John recently caused a stir when he played a secret show at Limbaugh’s June 5 wedding. The gay icon caught some flack for the performance, which netted him a reported $1 million paycheck from the radio commentator, who strongly opposes gay marriage and has a history of negative comments about homosexuality.
“It betrays either ignorance or self-interest or both, and jeopardizes his admirable record on gay rights,” Aaron Hicklin, Editor-in-Chief of Out, told PopEater at the time.
John’s longtime partner, David Furnish, said the singer was “a little surprised” to get the invitation, but accepted the job after deciding “Life is about building bridges, not walls.”
The singer said Limbaugh and his bride, Kathryn Rogers, “were incredibly gracious and very welcoming and very sweet and very appreciative.”
Is it possible to oppose the redefinition of traditional marriage and not be homophobic? Considering Rush invited an out-of-the-closet gay singer to his wedding, I’d say, “Yes.
Is it possible to oppose the redefinition of traditional marriage, and still be an advocate of gay rights? Yes, it is.
Is it possible to find disagreement with others politically and still treat one another with courtesy, civility, and respect? If Elton John and Rush Limbaugh are an indication, I’d say “yes”.
Is it possible to set aside partisan politics when it comes to arts and entertainment? Yes.
Problems arise, however, when one intentionally mixes the two and uses the one as a springboard platform to launch into the other. If you’re going to do that, don’t be surprised if you experience a backlash and alienate one half of your potential fanbase.
RI boy who made banned toy soldier hat gets medal
EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A Rhode Island boy whose school banned a hat he made because the toy soldiers on it carried tiny guns was awarded a medal on Friday for his patriotic efforts.
Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, the retired head of the Rhode Island National Guard, gave 8-year-old David Morales a medal called a challenge coin during an appearance on WPRO-AM's John DePetro show.
Centracchio said the second-grader should be thanked for recognizing veterans and soldiers.
"You did nothing wrong, and you did an outstanding job," he said. "We can only hope that kids of your caliber will continue to defend this country."
Centracchio also gave David a certificate that allows him to call himself a brigadier general.
David was assigned to make a hat last week for a project at the Tiogue School in Coventry. He chose a patriotic theme and glued plastic Army figures to a camouflage baseball cap. But school officials said the hat ran afoul of their no-weapons policy because the Army men held tiny guns.
The school has said David was offered the chance to wear the hat if he replaced the toy soldiers holding weapons with ones that didn't have any. Centracchio said that didn't make sense because soldiers are armed, and met with school administrators Thursday to share his concerns.
David said he felt great and called it an honor.
"I think it's really special," he said. "I'm going to definitely enjoy this day for a long time."
Also Friday, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said it sent a letter to Coventry Superintendent Kenneth DiPietro saying the school's policy was an unconstitutional violation of students' free speech. It called on the district to revise the policy.
DiPietro did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, the retired head of the Rhode Island National Guard, gave 8-year-old David Morales a medal called a challenge coin during an appearance on WPRO-AM's John DePetro show.
Centracchio said the second-grader should be thanked for recognizing veterans and soldiers.
"You did nothing wrong, and you did an outstanding job," he said. "We can only hope that kids of your caliber will continue to defend this country."
Centracchio also gave David a certificate that allows him to call himself a brigadier general.
David was assigned to make a hat last week for a project at the Tiogue School in Coventry. He chose a patriotic theme and glued plastic Army figures to a camouflage baseball cap. But school officials said the hat ran afoul of their no-weapons policy because the Army men held tiny guns.
The school has said David was offered the chance to wear the hat if he replaced the toy soldiers holding weapons with ones that didn't have any. Centracchio said that didn't make sense because soldiers are armed, and met with school administrators Thursday to share his concerns.
David said he felt great and called it an honor.
"I think it's really special," he said. "I'm going to definitely enjoy this day for a long time."
Also Friday, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said it sent a letter to Coventry Superintendent Kenneth DiPietro saying the school's policy was an unconstitutional violation of students' free speech. It called on the district to revise the policy.
DiPietro did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Academician turned property millionaire
By Sherry Koh | June 17, 2010
Despite his unassuming and jokester demeanour, Yee, 53, is someone who stays strongly focused on his goals. He has compiled a long list of academic qualifications through the years and has also paid many “tuition fees” (errors in property investment) since he started investing in his late 30s.
His never-give-up attitude has led him towards the much-desired path of financial freedom. To him, there is no such thing as failure, just learning. He has started businesses and failed. But he never saw those experiences as a failure despite what some might have branded him. He continued acquiring non-academic knowledge and finally found his riches via property investment.
Today, he lives in his dream house with a panoramic view of Kuala Lumpur’s city centre. The dream home closely resembles a sketch of a house on a hill that he drew in year 2000 and stuck onto the door of his wardrobe.
His tenacity might remind people of Yoda’s (Jedi Master from the Star Wars universe created by George Lucas) worldwide-known gems of advice - Do or do not. There is no try. StarProperty.my visited Dr Peter Yee at his office in Selayang, played the 'Success' board game he created and chatted about his interesting journey towards financial freedom.
Tell us about your journey towards financial freedom.
I spent too much time studying. That was my mistake. I went to five different universities, including the ones in Japan and the USA. I bought my first bungalow in my late 30s. Before that, it was just “break-even” every day. Basic education is important. But if I were to get a degree and immediately focus on making money, the results would’ve been different. A lot of my new friends and neighbours are not highly educated, but they make a lot of money because they focus their time on making money. That’s why my third book’s topic has changed. It will be about making money.
You should never give up in life, regardless of your age. There’s no such thing as failure. I have started businesses and closed them down. People might say that I am a failure, but I don’t think so. Instead, I change. This is because some businesses were not be suitable for me.
You were a teacher and remisier before. Did those experiences have a major impact on your life?
In year 2002, I was a school teacher and was posted to Kuala Terengganu. I was bonded for seven years as I took the Government’s scholarship. I wanted to leave to do business but I couldn’t because I did not have the RM100,000 to return to the Government. At that time, I had a house in Kuala Lumpur. It was sometimes rented out, and sometimes my family and I stayed for a while. An important learning is to invest in properties near you, maybe within 30 minutes, especially for residential properties. It is easier for tenant management and property maintenance.
My second scholarship was to Japan to study computer algorithm. It was a four-year contract. I served two years and paid back half the sum, RM15,000. I came back (Kuala Lumpur) to do management training for a college. It wasn’t easy because I was sent outstation all over Malaysia. One week in Penang, one week in Kuantan and so on. I did not like that kind of life. So I resigned and started my own training company that is similar like now, but smaller. Universities don’t teach living skills, how to make money or how to live a better life.
I needed sales. Everyday my staff asks, “Boss, what to do.” [laughs]. Nine months after starting the business, I became very depressed because there were no sales. So I shut down the business and became a remisier. I sold off the only house I have and paid a deposit of RM50,000, after negotiating with the company.
From all these, I learnt that in order to move forward, one needs to change to go on a different career path and also learn to sacrifice.
As a remisier, the income was good. In one month, one could make between RM30,000 to RM50,000, and sometimes more. In a year, there are maybe one or two good months. The other months, "sleeping" time. When it was busy, I talked until my cheek hurt. When it was quiet, there’s maybe one call per day. When the market was busy, I had four phones. That’s too busy! After five years, I decided that the job was not suitable and I attending a course called ‘Money and You’.
Actually, I attended many self-development courses to find out what was wrong with me. I found out that there was nothing wrong with me. There’s something wrong with my formal education! So I had to complement my formal education with not-so-formal education. In that seminar (Money and You), they said, “Do you like what you do?” If you don’t like, then you are like a prostitute. You only like the money, but you don’t like the job." Then I thought, “Eh! I feel like a prostitute.” [laughs]. So I resigned and managed to pull out some capital from the deposit . That is the beginning of my property investment career.
At that time, my wife was also looking for a location for a business. And that’s why I came to Selayang. We found a place with a 3+2 agreement, meaning 3 years of fixed rent, while 2 years float. After three years, there was some money coming in. So, I approached the landlord and he increased my rental from RM1,200 to RM2,200. When I asked him to reduce the rent, he shouted at me, “If you don’t like, many other people want to rent!”
It was very hard for me to accept that the world is so merciless. It won’t work to pay him endlessly. So we did something for ourselves. So we really thank that man, Mr Chan. Because of him, we have many shops now. Otherwise, we would still be renting.
What’s the board game about? Why did you create it?
I created the board game about 10 years ago. At that time, I like to play board game. You know, Robert Kiyosaki’s cash flow game? I enjoyed that game very much but I feel that his game missed something out. His game focuses mainly on financial intelligence. In life, finance is one of the important parts. But what about the other parts? Personal, health, relationship with family. So in my board game, we have financial intelligence but we added other aspects. Emotion, relationship, career, society, health and knowledge. It’s about how you balance these six aspects. For example, if you spend more time to make money from your job, then you will spend less time with your family. So how do you balance?
But then, when you talk about balance, if you don’t have passive income, how are you going to balance? So, that’s why I wrote this book (You Can Become Rich In Property). If you have passive income, then it frees you. This means more free time to balance other things.
The second book (The Certain Way To Life’s Riches) is about laws of attraction, about how to make things happen. People usually only look at the results. They don’t look at the steps. So I give them the steps.
How long did it take for you to build your dream home?
During a meeting with my friends, everyone set their goal. We wrote it down and presented to one another. This is my picture [shows a sketch that’s included in his book]. I wanted a house on a hill. That’s the beginning.
I bought three bungalows on separate occasions, but they were not suitable. Later on, I sold one condo to buy a piece of land and I sold one shop to build the house. And this is the view I see [showing another picture in his book]. Compared to the sketch, it’s quite similar, but the duration took about six years.
So I believe that anybody can create their own things as long as they really want it and really focus on it. The result is that my dream house is actually free.
How long have you stayed in your dream home?
About five years. It is just five minutes from this shop. So, if there’s anything that you want, write it down. And then list the steps on how to make it happen. I put my sketch in front of my bed and looked at my drawing in the morning, during transient periods and before I sleep. It has to do with mindset. Whatever I did , it was all to realise my dream house.
What kind of challenges did you face in that six years, while achieving your goal?
There were challenges! For example, there was one house was attracted to me. Initially, the owner wanted to sell it for RM400,000, but I did not have the money. But I still wanted the house. I was renting then. I said to myself, “I want!. But no money, how to buy?”. Six months later, the seller asked, “You want the house or not?”. I answered I want! So the seller said, “Why? What happened? Is it the price?”. I told the seller that it was the price and she said, “OK. I’ll come to your house. We talk.”
After negotiating, the seller agreed to RM365,000. So I bought the house. I just had enough for the 10% down payment. I was a remisier then. I wanted to speed up the process. So I speculated in the market and I lost half of the money! I was supposed to sign the S&P (Sales & Purchase Agreement) within two weeks. It took a few months for me! [laughs].
The seller waited for you?
Yes.
What are the other examples of laws of attraction that worked in your favour?
There was one from the auction market. I went all the way to Shah Alam to bid for it and I got it. Initially, the seller asked for RM330,000. But I did not have enough money, so I ignored it. Then the seller called me back and reduced to RM300,000 three months later. Six months later, the seller called me again and reduced further to RM264,000.
It’s things like that. It attracts, as long as your mind persists on having something, whatever it may be.
What is your property portfolio like?
Mixed. Some from auction and some from sub-sale (existing buildings).
From your property investments, what are some of the key learning?
It is better to stay on landed property as the rental is not as good. So you rent to yourself.
After I resigned as a remisier, I went to a property exhibition. Within a day, I bought two properties with cash (from my remisier deposit). My learning is to never buy property like that. You must do some research.
There’s another one where the sales person told me that the property will be completed with CF (Certificate of Fitness) within a week. It took one year and the price went down.
It was RM143,000 during launch and the current market value is about RM130,000.
Do you still have that property?
Yes. It is still rented out. Another lesson is to never take free advice [laughs]. I had a friend who stayed in an apartment who told me that the area has an investment future. So I bought two units. I bought it at RM80,000 in year 2000 and another unit at RM85,000. The market value now is about RM75,000. But in life, you should never give up also [laughs]. Even if you made a wrong decision already, you can still make it right. So I averaged it by buying three more units at RM53,000, RM47,000 and RM56,000. The average investment is less than RM75,000. So, never give up on life. Think positive.
Do you still have these five units?
Yes, still keeping all.
Any other examples?
There is one unit that I bought from a company. It took six months to negotiate. There were three directors. Two will agree, then the other disagrees. Two will sign the cheque, and the other one is overseas. My learning? Buying property needs patience, especially when you want to get below market price. I also learnt to not buy properties that are too far away. When a property is near you, it is easy for you to go and see. Now, it is easier still because I live on a hill. So I just need to see if the rented units have lights on at night [laughs].
I also bought a land with 20 other people. I am a minor shareholder. The market value at that time is RM20 million. Now the price has gone up. RM20 million has become RM40 million. My learning is that capital gain is mostly from the land. Building gives you the cash flow. Building is a deteriorated cost. It needs repair.
What happened to the land?
A developer is planning to build a 5-storey strata title shops. That is the best deal. The land appreciates, then you build your own and make money all the way.
What’s your passive income?
Sometimes more, sometimes less. I am also not sure of the exact figure. But it is more than enough to cover my expenses. I am financially free, because my properties' passive income is enough to support my expenditure. My personal expenditure is very low.
What types of courses or seminars do you conduct?
We have a few property courses conducted at this centre. I even give a one-year free coaching. This is because of the mission I set, hence I do not mind as long as they purchase properties. My seminars are available for a few hundred Ringgit only. It is cheaper, but they have to come here (Selayang). After my class, when the participants are not sure if they should purchase a property or not, they can make an appointment with me. I will give my opinion so that they will make less mistakes.
I will also give relevant CDs, advise on recommended readings and all details necessary for them to get started. There are three courses. One is How to Make Money from Residential Property with Little/ No-Money-Down. This one is suitable for those who are new to property investment, for those with no property yet and little savings. They will learn about money management, what is financial freedom, what is No-Money-Down, how to manage tenant and eventually buy their own home.
Second one is How to Make Money from Commercial Property?. This course is for those with some savings between RM100,000 and RM200,000. It is not advisable for beginners to attend. If they attend, they will learn the best techniques, but when they go back, they will get stressed out because they cannot go forward. From each commercial property deal, one can make RM50,000 to RM100,000. But one would need some capital.
I make the learning easy and I share a checklist which I use as well.
What if there is only one participant? Do you still conduct the workshop?
No. At least 10 people.
What’s the third workshop?
It is How to Make Money from Auction Property?. You can make a lot of money from auction properties, if you know how to. But there is a lot of risk as well. If you are interested in commercial auction, then it is better for you to attend the commercial class first.
What’s your next goal?
You really want to know? [laughs]. We want to create a balanced life city called Inova city. A city where people work and play. I have 30 years to do it. So I will continue working until then. It is based on the concept of a balanced life. For example, a mother who works close to her child’s day care centre.
Any advice for people who wants to start investing, apart from coming to your workshops?
Read up, especially those from local authors, and subsequently read those from the international scene. And then, attend all the suitable seminars.
Do you have any specific go-to strategies?
It depends. For No-Money-Down, use as little of your own money and look for properties below market price. Stretch the loan, rent out the place and make sure that rental is more than the instalment. After that, go for your second one. Make sure that the instalments do not eat into your salary. After second one, go for your third one. Maybe purchase one property every three to six months.
What is the best and worst advice you have received?
The worst advice I received was free advice. [laughs]
Unless it is from someone who knows better!
Yes. Correct. The best advice I received was also free advice from a professional. We knew each other from the property field. He gave me one good advice, which is to buy property in a rich man’s area, not in a poor man’s area. I took that advice and made a lot of money.
But not everyone can afford those areas.
[laughs] So, begin with a poor man’s area for cash flow. Whether the market iis up or down, you can still get tenants. When people buy bungalows, it is like buying dreams. Like my dream home, I didn’t care how much. I just wanted it. Many rich people got richer dreams, so they are willing to pay the price.
For information on Dr Peter Yee’s one-day workshops, visit www.balancelifesuccess.com,e-mail info@balancelifesuccess.com or call 017-2491077.
Despite his unassuming and jokester demeanour, Yee, 53, is someone who stays strongly focused on his goals. He has compiled a long list of academic qualifications through the years and has also paid many “tuition fees” (errors in property investment) since he started investing in his late 30s.
His never-give-up attitude has led him towards the much-desired path of financial freedom. To him, there is no such thing as failure, just learning. He has started businesses and failed. But he never saw those experiences as a failure despite what some might have branded him. He continued acquiring non-academic knowledge and finally found his riches via property investment.
Today, he lives in his dream house with a panoramic view of Kuala Lumpur’s city centre. The dream home closely resembles a sketch of a house on a hill that he drew in year 2000 and stuck onto the door of his wardrobe.
His tenacity might remind people of Yoda’s (Jedi Master from the Star Wars universe created by George Lucas) worldwide-known gems of advice - Do or do not. There is no try. StarProperty.my visited Dr Peter Yee at his office in Selayang, played the 'Success' board game he created and chatted about his interesting journey towards financial freedom.
Tell us about your journey towards financial freedom.
I spent too much time studying. That was my mistake. I went to five different universities, including the ones in Japan and the USA. I bought my first bungalow in my late 30s. Before that, it was just “break-even” every day. Basic education is important. But if I were to get a degree and immediately focus on making money, the results would’ve been different. A lot of my new friends and neighbours are not highly educated, but they make a lot of money because they focus their time on making money. That’s why my third book’s topic has changed. It will be about making money.
You should never give up in life, regardless of your age. There’s no such thing as failure. I have started businesses and closed them down. People might say that I am a failure, but I don’t think so. Instead, I change. This is because some businesses were not be suitable for me.
You were a teacher and remisier before. Did those experiences have a major impact on your life?
In year 2002, I was a school teacher and was posted to Kuala Terengganu. I was bonded for seven years as I took the Government’s scholarship. I wanted to leave to do business but I couldn’t because I did not have the RM100,000 to return to the Government. At that time, I had a house in Kuala Lumpur. It was sometimes rented out, and sometimes my family and I stayed for a while. An important learning is to invest in properties near you, maybe within 30 minutes, especially for residential properties. It is easier for tenant management and property maintenance.
My second scholarship was to Japan to study computer algorithm. It was a four-year contract. I served two years and paid back half the sum, RM15,000. I came back (Kuala Lumpur) to do management training for a college. It wasn’t easy because I was sent outstation all over Malaysia. One week in Penang, one week in Kuantan and so on. I did not like that kind of life. So I resigned and started my own training company that is similar like now, but smaller. Universities don’t teach living skills, how to make money or how to live a better life.
I needed sales. Everyday my staff asks, “Boss, what to do.” [laughs]. Nine months after starting the business, I became very depressed because there were no sales. So I shut down the business and became a remisier. I sold off the only house I have and paid a deposit of RM50,000, after negotiating with the company.
From all these, I learnt that in order to move forward, one needs to change to go on a different career path and also learn to sacrifice.
As a remisier, the income was good. In one month, one could make between RM30,000 to RM50,000, and sometimes more. In a year, there are maybe one or two good months. The other months, "sleeping" time. When it was busy, I talked until my cheek hurt. When it was quiet, there’s maybe one call per day. When the market was busy, I had four phones. That’s too busy! After five years, I decided that the job was not suitable and I attending a course called ‘Money and You’.
Actually, I attended many self-development courses to find out what was wrong with me. I found out that there was nothing wrong with me. There’s something wrong with my formal education! So I had to complement my formal education with not-so-formal education. In that seminar (Money and You), they said, “Do you like what you do?” If you don’t like, then you are like a prostitute. You only like the money, but you don’t like the job." Then I thought, “Eh! I feel like a prostitute.” [laughs]. So I resigned and managed to pull out some capital from the deposit . That is the beginning of my property investment career.
At that time, my wife was also looking for a location for a business. And that’s why I came to Selayang. We found a place with a 3+2 agreement, meaning 3 years of fixed rent, while 2 years float. After three years, there was some money coming in. So, I approached the landlord and he increased my rental from RM1,200 to RM2,200. When I asked him to reduce the rent, he shouted at me, “If you don’t like, many other people want to rent!”
It was very hard for me to accept that the world is so merciless. It won’t work to pay him endlessly. So we did something for ourselves. So we really thank that man, Mr Chan. Because of him, we have many shops now. Otherwise, we would still be renting.
What’s the board game about? Why did you create it?
I created the board game about 10 years ago. At that time, I like to play board game. You know, Robert Kiyosaki’s cash flow game? I enjoyed that game very much but I feel that his game missed something out. His game focuses mainly on financial intelligence. In life, finance is one of the important parts. But what about the other parts? Personal, health, relationship with family. So in my board game, we have financial intelligence but we added other aspects. Emotion, relationship, career, society, health and knowledge. It’s about how you balance these six aspects. For example, if you spend more time to make money from your job, then you will spend less time with your family. So how do you balance?
But then, when you talk about balance, if you don’t have passive income, how are you going to balance? So, that’s why I wrote this book (You Can Become Rich In Property). If you have passive income, then it frees you. This means more free time to balance other things.
The second book (The Certain Way To Life’s Riches) is about laws of attraction, about how to make things happen. People usually only look at the results. They don’t look at the steps. So I give them the steps.
How long did it take for you to build your dream home?
During a meeting with my friends, everyone set their goal. We wrote it down and presented to one another. This is my picture [shows a sketch that’s included in his book]. I wanted a house on a hill. That’s the beginning.
I bought three bungalows on separate occasions, but they were not suitable. Later on, I sold one condo to buy a piece of land and I sold one shop to build the house. And this is the view I see [showing another picture in his book]. Compared to the sketch, it’s quite similar, but the duration took about six years.
So I believe that anybody can create their own things as long as they really want it and really focus on it. The result is that my dream house is actually free.
How long have you stayed in your dream home?
About five years. It is just five minutes from this shop. So, if there’s anything that you want, write it down. And then list the steps on how to make it happen. I put my sketch in front of my bed and looked at my drawing in the morning, during transient periods and before I sleep. It has to do with mindset. Whatever I did , it was all to realise my dream house.
What kind of challenges did you face in that six years, while achieving your goal?
There were challenges! For example, there was one house was attracted to me. Initially, the owner wanted to sell it for RM400,000, but I did not have the money. But I still wanted the house. I was renting then. I said to myself, “I want!. But no money, how to buy?”. Six months later, the seller asked, “You want the house or not?”. I answered I want! So the seller said, “Why? What happened? Is it the price?”. I told the seller that it was the price and she said, “OK. I’ll come to your house. We talk.”
After negotiating, the seller agreed to RM365,000. So I bought the house. I just had enough for the 10% down payment. I was a remisier then. I wanted to speed up the process. So I speculated in the market and I lost half of the money! I was supposed to sign the S&P (Sales & Purchase Agreement) within two weeks. It took a few months for me! [laughs].
The seller waited for you?
Yes.
What are the other examples of laws of attraction that worked in your favour?
There was one from the auction market. I went all the way to Shah Alam to bid for it and I got it. Initially, the seller asked for RM330,000. But I did not have enough money, so I ignored it. Then the seller called me back and reduced to RM300,000 three months later. Six months later, the seller called me again and reduced further to RM264,000.
It’s things like that. It attracts, as long as your mind persists on having something, whatever it may be.
What is your property portfolio like?
Mixed. Some from auction and some from sub-sale (existing buildings).
From your property investments, what are some of the key learning?
It is better to stay on landed property as the rental is not as good. So you rent to yourself.
After I resigned as a remisier, I went to a property exhibition. Within a day, I bought two properties with cash (from my remisier deposit). My learning is to never buy property like that. You must do some research.
There’s another one where the sales person told me that the property will be completed with CF (Certificate of Fitness) within a week. It took one year and the price went down.
It was RM143,000 during launch and the current market value is about RM130,000.
Do you still have that property?
Yes. It is still rented out. Another lesson is to never take free advice [laughs]. I had a friend who stayed in an apartment who told me that the area has an investment future. So I bought two units. I bought it at RM80,000 in year 2000 and another unit at RM85,000. The market value now is about RM75,000. But in life, you should never give up also [laughs]. Even if you made a wrong decision already, you can still make it right. So I averaged it by buying three more units at RM53,000, RM47,000 and RM56,000. The average investment is less than RM75,000. So, never give up on life. Think positive.
Do you still have these five units?
Yes, still keeping all.
Any other examples?
There is one unit that I bought from a company. It took six months to negotiate. There were three directors. Two will agree, then the other disagrees. Two will sign the cheque, and the other one is overseas. My learning? Buying property needs patience, especially when you want to get below market price. I also learnt to not buy properties that are too far away. When a property is near you, it is easy for you to go and see. Now, it is easier still because I live on a hill. So I just need to see if the rented units have lights on at night [laughs].
I also bought a land with 20 other people. I am a minor shareholder. The market value at that time is RM20 million. Now the price has gone up. RM20 million has become RM40 million. My learning is that capital gain is mostly from the land. Building gives you the cash flow. Building is a deteriorated cost. It needs repair.
What happened to the land?
A developer is planning to build a 5-storey strata title shops. That is the best deal. The land appreciates, then you build your own and make money all the way.
What’s your passive income?
Sometimes more, sometimes less. I am also not sure of the exact figure. But it is more than enough to cover my expenses. I am financially free, because my properties' passive income is enough to support my expenditure. My personal expenditure is very low.
What types of courses or seminars do you conduct?
We have a few property courses conducted at this centre. I even give a one-year free coaching. This is because of the mission I set, hence I do not mind as long as they purchase properties. My seminars are available for a few hundred Ringgit only. It is cheaper, but they have to come here (Selayang). After my class, when the participants are not sure if they should purchase a property or not, they can make an appointment with me. I will give my opinion so that they will make less mistakes.
I will also give relevant CDs, advise on recommended readings and all details necessary for them to get started. There are three courses. One is How to Make Money from Residential Property with Little/ No-Money-Down. This one is suitable for those who are new to property investment, for those with no property yet and little savings. They will learn about money management, what is financial freedom, what is No-Money-Down, how to manage tenant and eventually buy their own home.
Second one is How to Make Money from Commercial Property?. This course is for those with some savings between RM100,000 and RM200,000. It is not advisable for beginners to attend. If they attend, they will learn the best techniques, but when they go back, they will get stressed out because they cannot go forward. From each commercial property deal, one can make RM50,000 to RM100,000. But one would need some capital.
I make the learning easy and I share a checklist which I use as well.
What if there is only one participant? Do you still conduct the workshop?
No. At least 10 people.
What’s the third workshop?
It is How to Make Money from Auction Property?. You can make a lot of money from auction properties, if you know how to. But there is a lot of risk as well. If you are interested in commercial auction, then it is better for you to attend the commercial class first.
What’s your next goal?
You really want to know? [laughs]. We want to create a balanced life city called Inova city. A city where people work and play. I have 30 years to do it. So I will continue working until then. It is based on the concept of a balanced life. For example, a mother who works close to her child’s day care centre.
Any advice for people who wants to start investing, apart from coming to your workshops?
Read up, especially those from local authors, and subsequently read those from the international scene. And then, attend all the suitable seminars.
Do you have any specific go-to strategies?
It depends. For No-Money-Down, use as little of your own money and look for properties below market price. Stretch the loan, rent out the place and make sure that rental is more than the instalment. After that, go for your second one. Make sure that the instalments do not eat into your salary. After second one, go for your third one. Maybe purchase one property every three to six months.
What is the best and worst advice you have received?
The worst advice I received was free advice. [laughs]
Unless it is from someone who knows better!
Yes. Correct. The best advice I received was also free advice from a professional. We knew each other from the property field. He gave me one good advice, which is to buy property in a rich man’s area, not in a poor man’s area. I took that advice and made a lot of money.
But not everyone can afford those areas.
[laughs] So, begin with a poor man’s area for cash flow. Whether the market iis up or down, you can still get tenants. When people buy bungalows, it is like buying dreams. Like my dream home, I didn’t care how much. I just wanted it. Many rich people got richer dreams, so they are willing to pay the price.
For information on Dr Peter Yee’s one-day workshops, visit www.balancelifesuccess.com,e-mail info@balancelifesuccess.com or call 017-2491077.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a concept in foreign affairs. As a theory, the Open Door Policy originates with British commercial practice, as was reflected in treaties concluded with Qing Dynasty China after the First Opium War (1839-1842). Although the Open Door is generally associated with China, it was recognized at the Berlin Conference of 1885, which declared that no power could levy preferential duties in the Congo basin.
As a specific policy with regard to China, it was first advanced by the United States in the Open Door Notes of September-November 1899. In 1898, the United States had become an East Asian power through the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, and when the partition of China by the European powers and Japan seemed imminent, the United States felt its commercial interests in China threatened. U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, and Russia), asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China. The open door policy stated that all European nations, and the United States, could trade with China.
In reply, each nation evaded Hay's request, taking the position that it could not commit itself until the other nations had complied. During this period there was a strong economic tension. However, by July 1900, Hay announced that each of the powers had granted consent in principle. Although treaties made after 1900 refer to the Open Door Policy, competition among the various powers for special concessions within China for railroad rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports, and so forth, continued unabated.
Technically, the term "Open Door Policy" can be only referred to as before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Regarding China's international trade policy introduced after Deng Xiaoping took office, it is termed as China's policy of opening up to the outside world.
Failure of the Open Door Principle
In 1902, the United States government protested that Russian encroachment in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion was a violation of the Open Door Policy. When Japan replaced Russia in southern Manchuria after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) the Japanese and U.S. governments pledged to maintain a policy of equality in Manchuria. In finance, American efforts to preserve the Open Door Policy led (1909) to the formation of an international banking consortium through which all Chinese railroad loans would agree (1917) to another exchange of notes between the United States and Japan in which there were renewed assurances that the Open Door Policy would be respected, but that the United States would recognize Japan's special interests in China (the Lansing-Ishii Agreement). The Open Door Policy had been further weakened by a series of secret treaties (1917) between Japan and the Allies, which promised Japan the German possessions in China on successful conclusion of the war.
The increasing disregard of the Open Door Policy was a main reason for the convocation of the Washington Conference (1921-1922) in Washington, D.C. As a result of the conference, the Nine-Power Treaty, again affirming the integrity and independence of China via the Open Door principle, was signed by the United States. However, the Nine Power Treaty lacked any enforcement regulations.
With the Japanese seizure (1931) of Manchuria and the creation of Manchukuo, however, the Open Door principle formally ceased to exist.
[edit] Open Door Policy in modern China
After World War II, China's position as a sovereign state was recognized, and all special concessions and unequal treaties were abolished, except for the unequal treaties signed with Russia. However, with the rise to power of the Communist Party of China, the Open Door Policy was rejected until 1978 when Deng Xiaoping, under his new capitalist-inclined system that promoted market forces, committed China to adopting policies which promote foreign trade and economic investment[1]. Since the late-1970s, the term "Open Door Policy" has also been used by the People's Republic of China as one justification for its demands that nations not provide diplomatic recognition to the Republic of China on Taiwan.
As a specific policy with regard to China, it was first advanced by the United States in the Open Door Notes of September-November 1899. In 1898, the United States had become an East Asian power through the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, and when the partition of China by the European powers and Japan seemed imminent, the United States felt its commercial interests in China threatened. U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, and Russia), asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China. The open door policy stated that all European nations, and the United States, could trade with China.
In reply, each nation evaded Hay's request, taking the position that it could not commit itself until the other nations had complied. During this period there was a strong economic tension. However, by July 1900, Hay announced that each of the powers had granted consent in principle. Although treaties made after 1900 refer to the Open Door Policy, competition among the various powers for special concessions within China for railroad rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports, and so forth, continued unabated.
Technically, the term "Open Door Policy" can be only referred to as before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Regarding China's international trade policy introduced after Deng Xiaoping took office, it is termed as China's policy of opening up to the outside world.
Failure of the Open Door Principle
In 1902, the United States government protested that Russian encroachment in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion was a violation of the Open Door Policy. When Japan replaced Russia in southern Manchuria after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) the Japanese and U.S. governments pledged to maintain a policy of equality in Manchuria. In finance, American efforts to preserve the Open Door Policy led (1909) to the formation of an international banking consortium through which all Chinese railroad loans would agree (1917) to another exchange of notes between the United States and Japan in which there were renewed assurances that the Open Door Policy would be respected, but that the United States would recognize Japan's special interests in China (the Lansing-Ishii Agreement). The Open Door Policy had been further weakened by a series of secret treaties (1917) between Japan and the Allies, which promised Japan the German possessions in China on successful conclusion of the war.
The increasing disregard of the Open Door Policy was a main reason for the convocation of the Washington Conference (1921-1922) in Washington, D.C. As a result of the conference, the Nine-Power Treaty, again affirming the integrity and independence of China via the Open Door principle, was signed by the United States. However, the Nine Power Treaty lacked any enforcement regulations.
With the Japanese seizure (1931) of Manchuria and the creation of Manchukuo, however, the Open Door principle formally ceased to exist.
[edit] Open Door Policy in modern China
After World War II, China's position as a sovereign state was recognized, and all special concessions and unequal treaties were abolished, except for the unequal treaties signed with Russia. However, with the rise to power of the Communist Party of China, the Open Door Policy was rejected until 1978 when Deng Xiaoping, under his new capitalist-inclined system that promoted market forces, committed China to adopting policies which promote foreign trade and economic investment[1]. Since the late-1970s, the term "Open Door Policy" has also been used by the People's Republic of China as one justification for its demands that nations not provide diplomatic recognition to the Republic of China on Taiwan.
First Opium War
The First Anglo-Chinese War (1839–42), known popularly as the First Opium War,[nb 2] was fought between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China, with the aim of securing economic benefits from trade in China.[3] In 1842, the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese called the unequal treaties—granted an indemnity to Britain, the opening of five treaty ports, and the cession of Hong Kong Island, ending the monopoly of trading in the Canton System. The war marked the end of China's isolation and the beginning of modern Chinese history.[4][5]
Background
During the 19th century, trading in goods from China was extremely lucrative for Europeans and Chinese merchants alike. Due to the Qing Dynasty's trade restrictions, whereby maritime trade was only allowed to take place in Canton (Guangzhou) conducted by imperially sanctioned monopolies, it became uneconomical to trade in low-value manufactured consumer products that the average Chinese could buy from the British like the Indians did.
Instead, the Sino-British trade became dominated by high-value luxury items such as tea (from China to Britain) and silver (from Britain to China), to the extent that European specie metals became widely used in China. Britain had been on the gold standard since the 18th century, so it had to purchase silver from continental Europe and Mexico to supply the Chinese appetite for silver, which was a costly process at a time before demonetization of silver by Germany in the 1870s. In casting about for other possible commodities to reverse the flow of silver out of the country and into China, the British decided on opium. Opium as a medicinal ingredient was documented in texts as early as the Ming dynasty but its recreational use was limited and there were laws in place against its abuse. It was with the mass quantities introduced by the British motivated by the equalization of trade that the drug became prevalent. British sales of opium in large amounts began in 1781 and between 1821 and 1837 sales increased fivefold. The drug was produced in traditionally cotton-growing regions of India under British government monopoly (Bengal) and in the Princely states (Malwa) and was sold on the condition that it be shipped by British traders to China. The Qing government had largely ignored the problem until abuse of the drug had spread widely in Chinese society.
Alarmed by the reverse in silver flow and the epidemic of addiction (an estimated 2 million Chinese were habitual users[6]), the Qing government attempted to end the opium trade, but its efforts were complicated by corrupt local officials (including the Viceroy of Canton). In one isolated incident, in 1818, the Laurel carried word to Sydney of a US ship laden with opium and treasure which was attacked by Chinese pirates. The crew of the US vessel had all been killed, but for the escaping first mate, who later identified the pirates to the authorities. In 1839, the Qing Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as the governor of Canton with the goal of reducing and eliminating the opium trade. On his arrival, Lin Zexu banned the sale of opium, asked that all opium be surrendered to the Chinese authorities, and asked that all foreign traders sign a 'no opium trade' bond the breaking of which was punishable by death. He also forced the British hand by closing the channel to Canton, effectively holding British traders hostage in Canton. The British Chief Superintendent of Trade in China, Charles Elliot, got the British traders to agree to hand over their opium stock with the promise of eventual compensation for their loss from the British government. (This promise, and the inability of the British government to pay it without causing a political storm, was an important cause for the subsequent British offensive).[7] Overall 20,000 chests[8] (each holding about 55 kg[9]) were handed over and destroyed beginning June 3, 1839.[10] Following the collection and destruction of the opium, Lin Zexu wrote a "memorial" (摺奏)[11] to the Queen of Great Britain in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the trade of the drug, as it had poisoned thousands of Chinese civilians (the memorial never reached the Queen).
[edit] Kowloon incident (July 1839)
After the chest seizure in April the atmosphere grew tense and at the end of June the Chinese coast guard in Kowloon arrested the commodore of the Carnatic, a British clipper.[12] On Sunday, 7 July 1839, a large group of British and American sailors, including crew from the Carnatic, was ashore at Kowloon, a provisioning point, and found a supply of samshu, a rice liquor, in the village of Chien-sha-tsui (Tsimshatsui). In the ensuing riot the sailors vandalized a temple and killed a man named Lin Weixi.[12] Because China did not have a jury trial system or evidentiary process (the magistrate was the prosecutor, judge, jury and would-be executioner), the British government and community in China wanted "extraterritoriality", which meant that British subjects would only be tried by British judges. When the Qing authorities demanded the men be handed over for trial, the British refused. Six sailors were tried by the British authorities in Canton (Guangzhou), but they were immediately released after they reached England. Charles Elliot's authority was in dispute; the British government later claimed that without authority from the Qing government he had no legal right to try anyone, although according to the British Act of Parliament that gave him authority over British merchants and sailors, 'he was expressly appointed to preside over ' Court of Justice, with Criminal and Admiralty Jurisdiction, for the trial of offenses committed by His Majesty's subjects in the said Dominions or on the high seas within one hundred miles of the coast of China'".[13]
The Qing authorities also insisted that British merchants not be allowed to trade unless they signed a bond, under penalty of death, promising not to smuggle opium, agreeing to follow Chinese laws, and acknowledging Qing legal jurisdiction. Refusing to hand over any suspects or agree to the bonds, Charles Elliot ordered the British community to withdraw from Canton and prohibited trade with the Chinese. Some merchants who didn't deal in opium were willing to sign the bond, thereby weakening the British trading position.
War
In late October, the Thomas Coutts arrived in China and sailed to Guangdong. This ship was owned by Quakers who refused to deal in opium, and its captain, Smith, believed Elliot had exceeded his legal authority by banning trade. The captain negotiated with the governor of Canton and hoped that all British ships could unload their goods at Chuenpee, an island near Humen. In order to prevent other British ships from following the Thomas Coutts, Elliot ordered a blockade of the Pearl River. Fighting began on 3 November 1839, when a second British ship, the Royal Saxon, attempted to sail to Guangdong. Then the British Royal Navy ships HMS Volage and HMS Hyacinth fired a warning shot at the Royal Saxon. The official Qing navy's report claimed that the navy attempted to protect the British merchant vessel and also reported a great victory for that day. In reality, they were out-classed by the Royal Naval vessels and many Chinese ships were sunk. Elliot reports that they were protecting their 29 ships in Chuenpee between the Qing batteries. Elliot knew that Chinese would reject any contacts with British and there would be an attack with fire boats. Elliot ordered all ships to leave Chuenpee and head for Tung Lo Wan, 20 miles (30 km) from Macau, but the merchants liked to harbor in Hong Kong. In 1840, Elliot asked the Portuguese governor in Macau to let British ships load and unload their goods at Macau and they would pay rents and any duties. The governor refused for fear that the Qing Government would discontinue to supply food and other necessities to Macau. On 14 January 1840, the Qing Emperor asked all foreigners in China to stop helping British in China.
Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, initiated the Opium War in order to obtain full compensation for the destroyed opium. China lost the war and was forced to open its five ports to foreign merchants and to permit a territorial concession of Hong Kong.
The war was denounced in Parliament as unjust and iniquitous by young William Ewart Gladstone, who criticized Lord Palmerston's willingness to protect an infamous contraband traffic. Outrage was expressed by the public and the press in the United States and United Kingdom as there was a perception that British interests may well have been simply supporting the drugs trade.
In retaliation, the British Government and British East India Company had reached a conclusion that they would attack Guangdong. The military cost would be paid by the British Government. In June 1840, an expeditionary force of 15 barracks ships, 4 steam-powered gunboats and 25 smaller boats with 4000 marines reached Guangdong from Singapore. The marines were headed by James Bremer. Bremer demanded the Qing Government compensate the British for losses suffered from interrupted trade. Following the orders of Lord Palmerston, the British expedition blockaded the Mouth of Pearl River and moved north to take Chusan.
The next year, 1841, the British captured the Bogue forts which guarded the mouth of the Pearl River — the waterway between Hong Kong and Canton. By January 1841, British forces commanded the high ground around Canton and defeated the Chinese at Ningbo and at the military post of Chinghai.
By the middle of 1842, the British had defeated the Chinese at the mouth of their other great riverine trade route, the Yangtze, and were occupying Shanghai. The war finally ended in August 1842, with the signing of China's first Unequal Treaty, the Treaty of Nanking.
[edit] Legacy
The ease with which the British forces had defeated the numerically superior Chinese armies seriously affected the Qing Dynasty's prestige. This almost certainly contributed to the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864).[citation needed] The success of the First Opium War allowed the British to resume the drug trafficking within China. It also paved the way for the opening of the lucrative Chinese market and Chinese society to missionary endeavors.
Among the most notable figures in the events leading up to military action in the Opium War was the man that Daoguang Emperor assigned to suppress the opium trade;[14] Lin Zexu, known for his superlative service under the Qing Dynasty as "Lin the Clear Sky".[15] Although he had some initial success, with the arrest of 1,700 opium dealers and the destruction of 2.6 million pounds of opium, he was made a scapegoat for the actions leading to British retaliation, and was blamed for ultimately failing to stem the tide of opium import and use in China.[16] Nevertheless, Lin Zexu is popularly viewed as a hero of 19th century China, and his likeness has been immortalized at various locations around the world.
Background
During the 19th century, trading in goods from China was extremely lucrative for Europeans and Chinese merchants alike. Due to the Qing Dynasty's trade restrictions, whereby maritime trade was only allowed to take place in Canton (Guangzhou) conducted by imperially sanctioned monopolies, it became uneconomical to trade in low-value manufactured consumer products that the average Chinese could buy from the British like the Indians did.
Instead, the Sino-British trade became dominated by high-value luxury items such as tea (from China to Britain) and silver (from Britain to China), to the extent that European specie metals became widely used in China. Britain had been on the gold standard since the 18th century, so it had to purchase silver from continental Europe and Mexico to supply the Chinese appetite for silver, which was a costly process at a time before demonetization of silver by Germany in the 1870s. In casting about for other possible commodities to reverse the flow of silver out of the country and into China, the British decided on opium. Opium as a medicinal ingredient was documented in texts as early as the Ming dynasty but its recreational use was limited and there were laws in place against its abuse. It was with the mass quantities introduced by the British motivated by the equalization of trade that the drug became prevalent. British sales of opium in large amounts began in 1781 and between 1821 and 1837 sales increased fivefold. The drug was produced in traditionally cotton-growing regions of India under British government monopoly (Bengal) and in the Princely states (Malwa) and was sold on the condition that it be shipped by British traders to China. The Qing government had largely ignored the problem until abuse of the drug had spread widely in Chinese society.
Alarmed by the reverse in silver flow and the epidemic of addiction (an estimated 2 million Chinese were habitual users[6]), the Qing government attempted to end the opium trade, but its efforts were complicated by corrupt local officials (including the Viceroy of Canton). In one isolated incident, in 1818, the Laurel carried word to Sydney of a US ship laden with opium and treasure which was attacked by Chinese pirates. The crew of the US vessel had all been killed, but for the escaping first mate, who later identified the pirates to the authorities. In 1839, the Qing Emperor appointed Lin Zexu as the governor of Canton with the goal of reducing and eliminating the opium trade. On his arrival, Lin Zexu banned the sale of opium, asked that all opium be surrendered to the Chinese authorities, and asked that all foreign traders sign a 'no opium trade' bond the breaking of which was punishable by death. He also forced the British hand by closing the channel to Canton, effectively holding British traders hostage in Canton. The British Chief Superintendent of Trade in China, Charles Elliot, got the British traders to agree to hand over their opium stock with the promise of eventual compensation for their loss from the British government. (This promise, and the inability of the British government to pay it without causing a political storm, was an important cause for the subsequent British offensive).[7] Overall 20,000 chests[8] (each holding about 55 kg[9]) were handed over and destroyed beginning June 3, 1839.[10] Following the collection and destruction of the opium, Lin Zexu wrote a "memorial" (摺奏)[11] to the Queen of Great Britain in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the trade of the drug, as it had poisoned thousands of Chinese civilians (the memorial never reached the Queen).
[edit] Kowloon incident (July 1839)
After the chest seizure in April the atmosphere grew tense and at the end of June the Chinese coast guard in Kowloon arrested the commodore of the Carnatic, a British clipper.[12] On Sunday, 7 July 1839, a large group of British and American sailors, including crew from the Carnatic, was ashore at Kowloon, a provisioning point, and found a supply of samshu, a rice liquor, in the village of Chien-sha-tsui (Tsimshatsui). In the ensuing riot the sailors vandalized a temple and killed a man named Lin Weixi.[12] Because China did not have a jury trial system or evidentiary process (the magistrate was the prosecutor, judge, jury and would-be executioner), the British government and community in China wanted "extraterritoriality", which meant that British subjects would only be tried by British judges. When the Qing authorities demanded the men be handed over for trial, the British refused. Six sailors were tried by the British authorities in Canton (Guangzhou), but they were immediately released after they reached England. Charles Elliot's authority was in dispute; the British government later claimed that without authority from the Qing government he had no legal right to try anyone, although according to the British Act of Parliament that gave him authority over British merchants and sailors, 'he was expressly appointed to preside over ' Court of Justice, with Criminal and Admiralty Jurisdiction, for the trial of offenses committed by His Majesty's subjects in the said Dominions or on the high seas within one hundred miles of the coast of China'".[13]
The Qing authorities also insisted that British merchants not be allowed to trade unless they signed a bond, under penalty of death, promising not to smuggle opium, agreeing to follow Chinese laws, and acknowledging Qing legal jurisdiction. Refusing to hand over any suspects or agree to the bonds, Charles Elliot ordered the British community to withdraw from Canton and prohibited trade with the Chinese. Some merchants who didn't deal in opium were willing to sign the bond, thereby weakening the British trading position.
War
In late October, the Thomas Coutts arrived in China and sailed to Guangdong. This ship was owned by Quakers who refused to deal in opium, and its captain, Smith, believed Elliot had exceeded his legal authority by banning trade. The captain negotiated with the governor of Canton and hoped that all British ships could unload their goods at Chuenpee, an island near Humen. In order to prevent other British ships from following the Thomas Coutts, Elliot ordered a blockade of the Pearl River. Fighting began on 3 November 1839, when a second British ship, the Royal Saxon, attempted to sail to Guangdong. Then the British Royal Navy ships HMS Volage and HMS Hyacinth fired a warning shot at the Royal Saxon. The official Qing navy's report claimed that the navy attempted to protect the British merchant vessel and also reported a great victory for that day. In reality, they were out-classed by the Royal Naval vessels and many Chinese ships were sunk. Elliot reports that they were protecting their 29 ships in Chuenpee between the Qing batteries. Elliot knew that Chinese would reject any contacts with British and there would be an attack with fire boats. Elliot ordered all ships to leave Chuenpee and head for Tung Lo Wan, 20 miles (30 km) from Macau, but the merchants liked to harbor in Hong Kong. In 1840, Elliot asked the Portuguese governor in Macau to let British ships load and unload their goods at Macau and they would pay rents and any duties. The governor refused for fear that the Qing Government would discontinue to supply food and other necessities to Macau. On 14 January 1840, the Qing Emperor asked all foreigners in China to stop helping British in China.
Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, initiated the Opium War in order to obtain full compensation for the destroyed opium. China lost the war and was forced to open its five ports to foreign merchants and to permit a territorial concession of Hong Kong.
The war was denounced in Parliament as unjust and iniquitous by young William Ewart Gladstone, who criticized Lord Palmerston's willingness to protect an infamous contraband traffic. Outrage was expressed by the public and the press in the United States and United Kingdom as there was a perception that British interests may well have been simply supporting the drugs trade.
In retaliation, the British Government and British East India Company had reached a conclusion that they would attack Guangdong. The military cost would be paid by the British Government. In June 1840, an expeditionary force of 15 barracks ships, 4 steam-powered gunboats and 25 smaller boats with 4000 marines reached Guangdong from Singapore. The marines were headed by James Bremer. Bremer demanded the Qing Government compensate the British for losses suffered from interrupted trade. Following the orders of Lord Palmerston, the British expedition blockaded the Mouth of Pearl River and moved north to take Chusan.
The next year, 1841, the British captured the Bogue forts which guarded the mouth of the Pearl River — the waterway between Hong Kong and Canton. By January 1841, British forces commanded the high ground around Canton and defeated the Chinese at Ningbo and at the military post of Chinghai.
By the middle of 1842, the British had defeated the Chinese at the mouth of their other great riverine trade route, the Yangtze, and were occupying Shanghai. The war finally ended in August 1842, with the signing of China's first Unequal Treaty, the Treaty of Nanking.
[edit] Legacy
The ease with which the British forces had defeated the numerically superior Chinese armies seriously affected the Qing Dynasty's prestige. This almost certainly contributed to the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864).[citation needed] The success of the First Opium War allowed the British to resume the drug trafficking within China. It also paved the way for the opening of the lucrative Chinese market and Chinese society to missionary endeavors.
Among the most notable figures in the events leading up to military action in the Opium War was the man that Daoguang Emperor assigned to suppress the opium trade;[14] Lin Zexu, known for his superlative service under the Qing Dynasty as "Lin the Clear Sky".[15] Although he had some initial success, with the arrest of 1,700 opium dealers and the destruction of 2.6 million pounds of opium, he was made a scapegoat for the actions leading to British retaliation, and was blamed for ultimately failing to stem the tide of opium import and use in China.[16] Nevertheless, Lin Zexu is popularly viewed as a hero of 19th century China, and his likeness has been immortalized at various locations around the world.
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