Archive for July, 2009
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
In 2007, before the economic slowdown’s full force hit, there were 10.1 million individuals in the world with financial assets of at least USD1 million. Compare that with the 6 billion earthlings – some cynics might quip that there were 10 million guys who’d be prepared to face malignant Mesothelioma.
Compared with 2006, there was a 6% increase in the number of millionaires.
These people owned financial assets totalling USD40.7 trillion i.e. USD40,700 billion.
The average millionaire was worth USD4 million, a record.
Over 63% of them live in North America and Europe.
In North America, there were 3.3 million millionaires, while in Europe there were 3.1 million.
Asia Pacific had 2.8 million, then the numbers dropped sharply: the rest of the world had about 900,000 millionaires, with Africa the least with a mere 100,000.
Among Asians, China had the most, with 415,000 millionaires.
That ranked China 5th in the world, surpassing France’s 394,000.
Great Britain was 4th at 495,000 millionaires.
The USA led the list with a staggering 3 million millionaires and Germany second at 826,000 millionaires.
Source
Suite101.com
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Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
A discussion at the end of a blog post on the primary and middle school teaching profession in Malaysia discussed the plight of teachers: the stress and the lack of remuneration, although a noble one, is preceived to be a dead-end profession, promotion-wise.
Then someone commented that if one is smart enough, one can turn the opportunities around, and make your school a big marketplace to solicit for clients for your private tuition classess.
He gave an example: one primary BM/Chinese teacher in Petaling Jaya makes tens of thousands extra per month by giving 21 sessions of tuition class to 20 students at RM60 per student head per month. That works out to be RM25,200 per month before deducting electricity bills.
Wow, that would easily buy one of those massive LCD TVs!
Source
The Star blog, 29th March 2006
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Monday, July 20th, 2009
From online sources, it was reported that:
(i) Michael Jackson owed at least USD300million when he died.
(ii) on paper at least, he had assets worth USD1.3 billion, most of them in his 50% ownership of the Beatles’ back catalogue.
(iii) his credit rating was 447 when he died – among the worst 2% when compared to all Americans.
(iv) he had less than USD700,000 in cash. That might be a lot of money to other folk, but for the King of Pop, that’s like spare change!
(v) he was a spendaholic, and someone called him “only a millionaire, but spends money like a billionaire”.
And as we all know, the one thing he did not need are weight loss supplements.
Still, RIP MJ.
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Sunday, July 19th, 2009
Lurid reports have been making the rounds that a desperate Michael Jackson was spending GBP30K per month on a “mountain” of prescription drugs to help him counter many disorders, and that he bought them under the name of Omar Adams.
The drug names that have been bandied about include narco pain reliever Vicodin, muscle relaxant Soma and the sedative Xanax.
Throw into the mix the antidepressant Zoloft, the anti-anxiety drug Paxil and the heartburn pill Priolosec.
Of course the one drug that he might never have needed was the diet pill Avesil.
But whew, have you even heard of those strange names?
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Thursday, July 16th, 2009
It has been reported, from various sources, that:
Pua Khein Seng, 34 is a Malaysian who invented the USB pen drive / thumb drive and helped Taiwan, his adopted country, to make USD31 billion in the process.
He could not even get into a local (Malaysian) university, so went off to study Electrical Control Engineering at Chiao Tung University, Taiwan in 1993. He stayed to complete his masters in 1999, worked for 6 months in a local company, then decided to set up Phison Electronics Corp with 4 fellow university-mates in November 2000.
Within six months they had came up with their first invention – a USB storage device called Pen Drive, the first company in the world to do so.
It was launched in June 2001.
By August 2001, they’d broken even.
From September 2001 onwards, the profits rolled in.
He is currently president of the company.
What I found most amazing is when he said he used to work 15-17 hours a day, and that is the norm in Taiwan. Where most people would hang out and relax in mamak stalls at night in KL, in Taiwan most people would still be working! He said that he works less hours after starting a family, but it’s still a big amount: more than 10 hours daily!
Wow, with people like these I think international background checks should be relaxed.
Source
The Star, 16th June 2008
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Friday, July 10th, 2009
On 29th June 2009, Bernard Madoff got 150 years behind bars for his role in the biggest ponzi scheme in history (USD65 billion).
Sure, 150 years is a mightly long time, but at least 3 others got even longer!
The champion is still Shalom [Sholam] Weiss (b 1954), former American businessman and a Rabbi of New York’s Hasidic Jewish community, who was sentenced to 845 years in the slammer in 2000.
Crime: Racketeering, fraud, money laundering of the National Heritage Life Insurance company, the largest insurance failure in history at the material time. The scam robbed thousands of pensioners of their life savings.
Well, at least he “can look forward to being released sometime around 2845.”
Sarcastic comment maybe, but definitely a lot of time to read diet pill reviews, not that they’ll overfeed you in prison.
At 2nd place is Weiss’s accomplice, Keith Pound.
He got slightly less: 740 years, but ended up serving only 4 – died in prison.
At 3rd place, Norman Schmidt who was already 72 years old when he was sentenced in April 2008 for a multimillion dollar investment pyramid scheme.
Jailtime: 330 years.
He scammed hundreds of investors, and used the money paid by paying himself – racing cars and a hotel.
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