Does MaxValu want to get rich quickly ...

This afternoon, I was shocked to note that the price of a packet of red grapes from Tasmania at the MaxValu dept store in Prima Damansara was sold for RM 14.90 while only a week before, that similar packet of Tasmanian grapes was sold for RM 12.90. For no good reason at all, except to make a quick buck, the dept. store simply raised the price by RM 2.00 or 15.5 percent. I complained to the supervisor that I could get the same grapes at Carrefour or Giant for much less. He advised me to write a complaint against the management in a customer-complain form, which I did. 

I further told the supervisor that I didn't do my shopping here but in Subang Jaya where I live. The fact that I have been buying goods from MaxValu every week was because every Friday I am fetching my nephews from the school opposite the store and take the opportunity to shop there while waiting for them to come out from the school gate. Hence I know the weekly movement of prices of the things that I buy from the store. I feel that it was unreasonable for the store to raise the price by a large margin just because there's a world wide shortage of essential food items like rice.

I decide there and then to stop buying anything from MaxValu. It looks like the store name connotes maximum value for their goods when it should mean maximum value for our money. I am suggesting to customers of MaxValu to boycott the shop or any shops should they increase prices for no rhyme or reason.

Do it elsewhere, not here ...

If you are a public figure ( and by this I mean, you are a vvip, viz. say a minister) who is hankering for a bit of flesh, please, for Pete's sake, do it outside the country where you are unknown. Recently, there was a media report and a police report on a former minister attempting to outrage the modesty of a woman promoter in a 5-star hotel. The police report was retracted by the woman concerned and the former  minister involved was a well known figure and is currently an MP in the state of Pahang. He was reported to be in a state of drunkenness when the outrage was perpetrated.

Malaysian public figures don't seem to be aware that, if they were ministers, their actions are up to scrutiny by the Malaysian public (or for that matter, any public figure of any country ). The public expect them to behave with decorum even outside their working hours. There's no such thing as after "5.00 pm", these vvip could do as they like in public and that what they do was not the public's business. They should not be seen to be gallivanting around like young studs in heat. 

A recent case of one Health Minister, Chua Soi Lek, caught flaggerante on a video with a woman not his wife in a hotel room, is enough reason for such a person to behave properly. 

My uncle once related to me that  he saw a Deputy Prime Minister in the company of 4 young women way back in the 1980s having an enjoyable drink in the coffee house in Regent Hotel (its now called Park Royal Hotel) in Bukit Bintang. Together with the girls was a young man who looked like a pimp to him. Pity, in those days there's no such thing as a video camera, otherwise my uncle would have videotaped the antics of the DPM. Another story he told me was about a womanising minister who was proud to show off his latest girlfriend in public even though the minister was married. 

Is OREC going to succeed as OPEC ...

The Thai Prime Minister is proposing to set up a cartel of rice producing countries called OREC (Organisation of Rice Exporting Countries) as a way of controlling and managing the world price of rice. The potential members are Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. This idea comes in the aftermath of rice shortages that cause the world price of rice to  nearly triple in the last few months. In 2004, the price of 100% B-grade white rice was about USD 200 per tonne while now, the price has reached USD 1,000/= per tonne - a five fold increase in 4 years.

While OPEC has Saudi Arabia which is the biggest oil producer, OREC does not have China and India which are the top 2 producers of rice. China alone produces more rice than the OREC members combined. Unlike oil which is a depleting resource, rice is a renewable resource. All one needs to do, in instances of shortage, is to open more areas for cultivation and grow more paddy. You can't do this with oil.

The top 10 producers of rice are China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippines, Brazil, and Japan. The biggest rice exporter however is not China or India but Thailand, exporting about a third of total rice exports, followed by India, Vietnam, Pakistan and even the USA. European countries such as Belgium, Spain and Italy are even rice exporters. 

A main factor in the world price increase of rice is due to cutbacks of rice exports from China, Myanmar, Vietnam, USA. Unfortunately, Malaysia imports 30 percent of its rice and is therefore affected by the increase in price. Other factors are increase in demand for rice in developing nations, the shift to biofuel production by removal of crops in the food chain, and global warming causing droughts in rice producing countries. Malaysia is now rethinking about opening more land, in Sarawak especially, to grow more rice. 

Although a rice producer itself, Philippines is the biggest rice importer and is thus greatly vulnerable to the recent price increase of rice.

They are better than the 3 stooges ...

The antics of Lim Kit Siang, Bung Karno and Karpal Singh are better than the 3 stooges. Never have I laughed so much at the slapstick comedy in the Malaysian House of Parliament. Here we have MPs talking without being asked to and shouting insults at each other as though they are in a football field when blatant fouls are committed by one against another. 

The referee, i.e. the Speaker is unable to control the game either. At one point, Karpal Singh is usurping the role of the Speaker by saying about points of order while Bung Karno and Lim Kit Siang are talking incoherently.