The M Society

I set up a new goal two days ago, which is to swim a total distance of 1000 km in 2008.  After having a new goal, I immediately go and sign up on the second day.  The following day I, which is today, I swam 1000 metres.

Is 1000 km a long distance?

If I swim 1km everyday, I won’t make it to 1000 km in a year time.  You might be thinking why I just swim 1 km today.  It is a long term goal, and you can’t achieve it in one day time.  It had been months I didn’t go swimming.  The reason I swam 1000 metres only was to warming up my body to make it getting use to long duration swimming.  It took me half an hour to finish 1000 metres.  1000 km means a heck of 500 hours time to me.

After getting use to 1km, I will increase my swimming length to 2km and then 3km until 5km.

Time

As I said I tried to walk to my destination in stead of using any other transport.  I walked to swimming pool as well.  It took me 20 minutes to get to the swimming pool, and another twenty minutes to come back from swimming pool.  I tried to walk slower today to estimate the total time I needed to go forth and back from swimming pool including the swimming time.  It took me one and a half hour.

I tried to fit the swimming schedule into my timetable, as it is quite packed.  I realized that I can’t swim everyday, but I can swim most of the days in the week.  I had two solutions.  One is I woke up early in the morning walking to swimming pool and swim, or I can swim after work.  Personally I prefer the previous one.  It is because I need not to re-schedule my timetable now.  Another reason is that after work, there are a lot of people in the pool, which makes me hard to swim and would waste more time to finish each lap.  However, there is a disadvantage to swim in the morning.  Besides the cold weather, I have limited time to swim.  I don’t own the swimming pool, and it has its own opening hour.  I have work in the morning as well, which means I have limited time to swim.  I tried to estimate the distance I can swim in the morning, and it is 1 km.  With this plan, I can’t meet my goal.  Swimming in the morning also worries me, as I’m not sure if it will affect my concentration during work.

So I came up with another solution.  Most of the time I can swim in the morning, but some other days which are not so scheduled, I can swim in the evening.  For those evenings or weekends, I can swim more laps.

Shower

I don’t shower in swimming pool.  The reason is that the water pressure of the bathroom there is not strong enough.  I’m kind of clean-freak.  Normally I would come back home and bath, unless I have no other choices.

Why Swimming?

I tried all kinds of sports and I found that swimming is the one that is most effective to me.  Swimming also built up my stamina, which can make me handle the heavy work pressure.  I can also spend time thinking in the water while swimming.  The pool cools my head and I think better.

Popularity: 31% [?]

You know you are unique.  You know you are going to be successful.  You know you are going to be rich.  You know you can be richer than other people.  But do you know that many other people have the same thoughts like you?

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Popularity: 33% [?]

The Age (22/2/2008):

Families skip meals to pay rent

Act on negative gearing, say experts 

by Sunanda Creagh (Sydney) and Tim Colebatch (Canberra)

RISING rents are forcing thousands of Australians to skip meals and deny their children school excursions, according to new research.

This came as another study showed there will be a massive increase in the number of renters over the next 40 years as housing becomes increasingly unafforable to low-income earners.

Research by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, based on surveys and interviews with 1400 renter households and 400 recent home purchasers, found that 26% of low-income renters surveyed sometimes go without food and 42% can’t afford school excursions.  Forty-seven per cent said that, even with improved income, rents would still be too high.

“Despite the government obsession with home ownership, private rental is the problem sector,” institute researcher Terry Burke told the National Housing Conference in Sydney.

Many home owners pay their mortgage by taking second jobs, but Professor Burke said: “Any economic slowdown means they could lose those jobs and then you have thousands who are going to be in trouble.  I suspect we are approaching that situation.”

He criticised negative gearing, the first home owners’ grant, capital gains tax and rent assistance as measures that add to demand for housing without boosting supply, but said he doubted the Federal Government would drop the policies.

A separate study presented at the conference, headed by hosing analyst Judith Yates of Sydney University, projects taht over the next 40 years, the number of households will increase by 50%, but the number of renters will almost double.

“In the future, as in the past, the majority of Australians will have affordable, secure housing over their lives,” the study said.  “(But) it will increasingly difficult for low and moderate-income households who have deferred home purchase to become home owners.”  The number of lower-income households in housing stress in the private rental market is expected to increase by 120%.

The study points out that home ownership rates are already falling among younger households.  Between 1981 and 2006, the proportion of householders aged 35 to 44 who do not own their home has risen from 25% to 32%.  The proportion aged 25 to 34 who are renting has swollen from 39% to 49%.

The Housing Industry Associatiation forecast that in 2007-08 there would be hardly any growth in housing starts.

Housing Industry Association director Chris Lamont said hosuing starts had stalled at a level providing about 20,000 fewer homes a year that Australia needed.  New rate rises would further restrict supply, putting more pressure on house prices and rents.

Popularity: 74% [?]

I changed my lifestyle recently.  I reduced my expenses to minimize my expense.  I worked on many things to archive that.  There were two major things I worked on to minimize my expenses, which were transport and food.

Transport

I stopped driving.  Heck, this saved me tonnes of money.  In stead of taking public transport or biking, I walked.  Walking is free.  After walking for couple of weeks, I feel healthier.  My blood pressure decreased.  I woke up earlier so that I can reach the destination in time.  I had better sleep quality compared to before as I was really exhausted.  Is it the reason people always say that poorer people are healthier?  I also enjoy what I saw during the walk, the people, the scene and the accidents.

Walking also brought risks to me.  Not everywhere had a sidewalk for pedestrian, which meant that I had to walk on the street.  I also had to cross the road to get to other side of the road, and there were many reckless drivers.  Sometimes when I was in rush, I tend to break the rules by not waiting for the traffic light.

However I discovered something.  As walking takes more time than biking, taking public transport, and definitely driving is much more way faster than walking.  My daily production reduced as I have less time.  I spent more time on walking.  This proved that “Time is Money”.

Food

I love dining out.  I love to try different restaurant, different dishes, and enjoying the culture differences.  Money is the ticket for all the nice food.  When I looked at my past expenses, the contribution to food was more than 70%.  I came to realize that I was very willing to spend on good food (not junk food).  Then I worked out a plan to overcome this problem.  I cooked myself.  I learnt a lot by buying my own food from the market.  I compare prices, quality and quantity.  I came to realize that cheaper things can be better things too.

I don’t like to cook complicated food.  Simple is nice.  Cooking soup was my favourite as it required not much ingredients, skills, nor time.  All I needed was a tastebud to ensure the taste of the soup was okie.  Another benefit of cooking soup was that I could cooked a large pot, and just left it there to eat for the next couple days.  My soup was definitely healthy, as I had both meat and veges in it, and less salts.

I also fried vegetables to eat, with olive oil.  Olive oil is really expensive compared to other oil.  I realized that there were many different types of olive oils.  For example, extra-virgin, virgin, and pure olive oil.  I’m not sure what is the difference between them, but I was told not to use the extra-virgin oil for frying purposes.

Sports

I used to go gym and swimming.  I paid for both of them.  Then I quited the membership and I didn’t have to pay for them.  In stead of going gym or swimming, I go jogging.  I jog around my neighbourhood, looking like an idiot.  I met a lot of people in my neighbourhood.  I breathed in fresh air, and it’s way better than what you smelled in the gym.  But deep inside me I still prefer swimming.

There were also many other things I did to minimize my expenses, such as switching off all the lights in the house at night, dry clothes without using dryer but under the sun, etc.

Popularity: 44% [?]

Inflation is up and you best watch the wages

– David James

Inflation is getting uncomfortably high, and it is just as well that we have not also had a wages breakout.  Goodness, if people start getting paid more, then we will all be worse off.  Especially if you happen to be a starving chief executive living from hand to mouth to stock option to annual bonus.  Clearly, the working poor will have to remain the working poor, otherwise we will not be able to ignore them at relevant social occasions.  Here are some pretty poor words.

AAA.  A measure to indicate that an investment possesses the lowest level of risk.  It once meant something, until ratings agencies started to get a bad case of the stutters.  They began to say things like “This is a… a… a dog”, which would be interpreted as “Triple A”.  Then everyone involved would leave planet Earth for a little trip around the outer reaches of the solar system accompanied by a subprime mortgage.

Compensation.  An opportunity to prove that when something is more important than money, it’s definitely about the money.

Investment bankers.  Masters of the universe.  Who cannot fail to be impressed by their love affairs with calculators?  Their intimate knowledge of when to wear yellow tie and when to wear pink?  Their wholehearted efforts to destroy what’s left of Western civilisation?

Sorry.  A word that is very much in vogue.  We suggest economists apologise for being right half of the time, but neve knowing which half.  Kevin Rudd should apologise for bring the only Kevin Rudd available.  Brendan Nelson should apologise for not having the decency to stay in bed.

David James is investment editor for BRW magazine and author of The Business Devil’s Dictionary.

Read this from 18 Feb 2008 The Age.

Popularity: 29% [?]

This picture is amazing.  People said they gave 100% at work, but is it everyday?

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Popularity: 37% [?]

“Arghh! Where is my key? I thought I put here.”

Is that line often appeared in your life? If it is true, then you are in big trouble. Sometimes your stuffs seem like conspires against you getting lost together. Then you spent a lot of time finding them, and when you gave up on them, they appeared.

Organize Where To Put Your Things

It is important to have a habit to put things back at the same place. Build a rack to put your remote controls. Set up hangers on your wall for you to hang your keys. It is your responsbility to know where you put your things. When you are in rush, sometimes you tend to have short term amnesia. You can’t recall where you put your stuff even though you are damn sure you put it there (but you can’t find it, it disappears by itself).

Your Things Doesnt’ Walk Away

Your things don’t walk appear. They won’t just disappear out of a sudden. You must have placed it somewhere but you recall the wrong location. Finding these tiny things like keys, remote controls, wallet, books, papers, etc. really waste a lot of your time. If you are in an emergency, you will be panic and you might lose sight of the thing even if it is just in front of you.

So please make it a habit to put things where they should be. Clean up your table and drawers. Reorganize the allocation of things, and label them. This helps you at finding your things.

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Popularity: 29% [?]

Do you let people around you giving out their opinions and thoughts? Do you always ignore them?

A lot of people like to talk, but not listening. This is a bad thing to do. It is bad to give out only, but not receiving anything in. Life is about balance, so do interactions with people.

Why Only You Do The Talking Is Bad?

1. You might miss out things others know but you don’t know. Since they can’t tell you.
2. You make people hate you.
3. You are ignorant.

How Can You Fix The Problem?

When you communicate with people, please try to calm down your urge to speak. It is rude to interrupt others when they’re giving the speech. What you can do is let others speak first, then you note down what you want to refute / praise / elaborate in your mind. When they had finish, then only you give your talk. When you finish saying what you want to say, please ask others for their opinions and if they have any questions.

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Popularity: 26% [?]

The “M-shaped Society” concept is a hot issue in Taiwan ever since Kenichi Ohmae defined it. I found this article published in National Policy Foundation (NPF) Research Report.

Ohmae’s concept has immediately caught the attention of the general public as well as government policy makers in Taiwan. Many have recently argued whether the income distribution structure has transformed into an M-shaped curve. For instance, consumer prices have escalated over the years, but the wage seems to have stood still. Education expenditures and child bearing costs have particularly surged and become unbearable to many families. Many people have therefore claimed themselves as “near poor” group. Those who have suffered irregular employment or unemployment may even fall into the so-called “new poor” class. On the other side of the island, it has been often reported that housing market in urban area has reached a record of high price, which is far beyond the affordable price for most people in the society. Luxurious goods have well sold at unprecedented price, which is hardly reached by the general public. It seems that a divided society is becoming a catchword for recent Taiwan society.

………..

Examining the unemployed population by age, we found that those aged 25-29 remained the highest rate of unemployment as compared to other age groups. The majority of those aged 25-29 are university and college graduates, who are conventionally expected to be in the middle-income class. This suggests that if the unemployment rate of high-educated population remains relatively high, the middle-class will be more likely to decline in the near future.

………..

Unlike in Japan, the earnings of workers in Taiwan did not significantly decrease in recent years. Taiwan seems to deviate from the M-shaped society as Ohmae defined. Although Ohmae focused on the decline of the middle classm, he did not provide any statistical measurement in his well-known book. We thus develop two tentative but handy measures for examining the shift of middle class, and coined them as “the Balance Index” and “the M-ratio” respectively. The former was constructed as a relative measure among different income groups, while the latter was designed as a measure indicating the change of the middle class relative to the overall contribution of people.

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Popularity: 100% [?]

I think this ‘life instruction’ is pretty useful. You can consider printing it out and stick at a place where you can look at it often.

• Have fun.
• Do not hurt people.
• Do not accept defeat.
• Strive to be happy.

Life is as simple as that.

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Popularity: 28% [?]