Friday, January 16, 2009

Bull Mauled by The Bear??

2 weeks into the new year and we have heard so many bad things happening in the market. Banks and companies are not hiring people at the moment and the latest one is the Satyam debacle, the largest corporate fraud ever perpetrated in India. I am just perplexed how 2 brothers managed to falsely inflate their profits and cook their books which amounted to more than $1 billion!! And this had gone on for a number of years!! How the regulators had failed to detect this is beyond me. And we’re talking about a company which is listed in the New York Stock Exchange, for heaven sakes!!!

And what about the Madoff scandal? I mean this guy was the former Chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Exchange but now it was reported that he had swindled up to $50 billion from investors. I read somewhere that when he was questioned by the FBI he allegedly told them that his business was "a giant
Ponzi scheme!!!” I mean if a former Chairman of NASDAQ, a person who supposedly has a sound financial knowledge is involved in this kind of illegal activity then who can you trust????!!!


Reading about these 2 cases got me really upset. Upset because the victims would be the innocent shareholders and investors who had put their trust in the company and had put their money in the hands of the man they think they could trust. Now I understand why our forefathers used to keep their money under the pillow.

Anyway talking about money, I heard that bonus for government officers are good this year. It seems that the government has to give good bonuses so people would spend and inject money into the economy. That’s why you don’t see any empty shopping complexes or why Malaysians can still go for holidays overseas even though EVERYONE kept telling us the economy is bad, we’re going into recession and inflation rate is going to be high. Oh well…

In other news, Jason Mraz is coming to Malaysia on March 4th. I’m definitely going for his concert. A lof of my friends are going for Rihanna’s on the 19th Feb. PGL 3rd season is starting in February. Believe it or not I’ve never seen PGL at Istana Budaya because tickets are always sold out so hopefully I get to go this year. Sigh…more money down the drain…

7 comments:

Legal Cat said...

As long as we have people like you in SC hope the 'scam' won't be as damaging.... ;) unless you count some new Pak Man Telo schemes

Ms B said...

ahh, now it explains why a lot of malaysians spend their $$ on designer goods while one vacation here. I spoke to a friend, "it is either they earn more than we do, which probably not, or they have yet to feel the pinch of recession".

The majority of us here have been careful when it comes to spending, at least thats how I could see since mid of last year.

anyway.... hati ini amat jeles that you are going to j mraz concert. i missed him when he had his here! (masa tuh sibuk pun).

Anonymous said...

The only way to stop future genocide is to fight back our way. The cowards use drones and missiles. No suicide bombs. Use snipers and hitmans. Pay them to kill their ambassadors and their families, their company ceos and their families. They kill our children. List down the numbers they have kill and we try to reach that number. An eye to an eye. Hit them anywhere in this world, from Brazil to Mongolia.
Distribute this comment to as many people as possible all over the world.

Anonymous said...

c_gurl,

aaa...u from SC? asonedesukaa..are u also from tok ali's legacy?

anyway..

I am not totally amazed on how creative people could be. Money talks; hence investors (especially the casual one; I termed them as risk takers) are more interested in making money from the ‘slot machines’ without proper/much analysis.

The exec from those companies must be bloody awesome that they could convince analyst/regulators of their figures and order books. No matter how stringent rules and regulations can be, breaking ‘em would be a pleasure to some. The idiom caveat emptor is the only sensible insurance investor has.

OTOH, those who have money should spend it more on ‘home made goodies’ than spending it outside…

Just my 1 rupiah..

Cheers..

maszuzu said...

how was butterfinger?? demn!! tics sold out...:(

PGL..awesome..shud go n see it...

Cosmic_GurL said...

Kruel - Arrgghhh Apak! Now the whole world knows where I work! :P

Ms B - Yes! A lot of my friends are buying marc jacobs and coach handbags during sale. But to me even if it's on sale, i still tak mampu and wont spend more than
RM1,000 for a handbag...hehehe..
thts just me la...

RDB - Well for a while only...I joined in 2004...Yeah some of these investors pun melampau sometimes..when times are good and they make money they wont complain but when they start loosing money barulah menggelabah!

mas - I tak sempat beli tix for butterfingers pun :(

east43street said...

I think not only the bull had been mauled, the whole bull must have been swallowed by the bear.

Ponzi..... and giant ponzi. Tun Dr. Mahathir stands correct on his prediction.