Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by xCM

How politics behind Msia's edu reform difficulties

xCM — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 23:57:26 +0800

[YOUTUBE]RCj5wfAQWok?si=EKUHOhnCS-tTOahN[/YOUTUBE]

QUOTE

Malaysian Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, has said that his country “cannot be in denial" about the state of its education system. He made this comment after Malaysia's PISA score, an international student assessment, tumbled far more than its Southeast Asian counterparts.

PM Anwar highlighted the urgent need for education reform, pointing to country's lack of STEM graduates. He also wants students to improve in the English language. But tackling education reform in Malaysia is complex, intertwined with language, religion and racial identity. Is Malaysia's education system failing? And what can be done to lift its grade?

habisla food rider out of job soon

xCM — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 20:17:42 +0800

How la?
Green wave robot incoming

[YOUTUBE]8V2rdl9I_zk?si=XvGqzxNsmPW2bWy-[/YOUTUBE]

Cina nt the most & Bumi nt the least EPF saving

xCM — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 22:46:18 +0800

Why policy takeaway is not Chinese have the most and bumiputeras the least EPF savings and income

By Cindy Yeap / The Edge Malaysia
20 Sep 2023, 02:30 pm

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on September 11, 2023 - September 17, 2023

THE low level of retirement savings among Malay and other bumiputera private sector wage earners compared with their fellow Malaysians of Chinese and Indian ethnicity recently made headlines when lawmakers provided such numbers in parliament when arguing against more premature withdrawals of statutory retirement savings from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

While the median savings among EPF members of Chinese and Indian ethnicity in May 2023 were higher than that of Malays and other bumiputera, the reality is that the median EPF savings is low even among the Chinese, who make up about 24% of the provident fund’s membership.

According to EPF data, the median savings among the 3.1 million Chinese EPF members was RM47,385 as at May 2023, which works out to only RM197 per month for 20 years. That is just under one-fifth of the prevailing minimum civil service pension of RM1,000 a month — hardly enough to get by, even though the figure looks high when stacked against the median savings of RM7,078 (RM29 a month for 20 years) among the seven million Malay EPF members.

Savings adequacy is also a concern among the one million EPF members who are of Indian ethnicity, even though their median savings of RM15,985 (RM67 a month for 20 years) is above that of the median savings of RM4,579 (RM19 per month over 20 years) among the 1.4 million non-Malay bumiputera EPF members (see Table 1).

That median EPF savings of Malay members are higher than that of non-Malay bumiputera should not cloud the fact that the median savings of all ethnicities point to a serious need to shore up savings adequacy.

With only 19%, or 2.5 million, of the 13.3 million EPF members meeting the EPF’s basic savings by age, not all 3.1 million Chinese EPF members automatically have enough to retire. In short, ethnicity has scant meaning on one’s adequacy of retirement savings relative to more useful details like age, trajectory of wages, education, skills and the industries the EPF members are in.

What about degree holders?
Not all Chinese earn high wages or have degrees, according to data provided by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).

Going by the country’s demographic mix alone — where 70% of Malaysians are bumiputera versus 22.6% Chinese and 6.6% Indian — it should come as no surprise that there are more degree holders who are bumiputera than those who are Chinese and Indian put together.

If the country’s highest-paid employees are likely to have at least a degree, and there are more than twice as many bumiputera degree holders than there are Chinese degree holders, why are median wages higher for the local Chinese compared with their bumiputera peers?

Without going into more subjective arguments over the quality of graduates, the statistics on wages point to at least three reasons for the relatively lower median pay.

The majority are Form 5 school leavers
The first short answer is that there are many more bumiputera in Malaysia who do not have a degree or its equivalent compared with the Chinese and Indians, official data show.

Specifically, the 1.54 million bumiputera with a degree in Malaysia only make up 16.6% of the 9.25 million wage earners who are bumiputera. The percentage is lower than among the Malaysian Chinese, where 22.4% or 732,500 of the 3.27 million employed persons have at least a degree.

Similarly, about 18.6% or 187,200 of just over one million employed Malaysian Indians have at least a degree, according to DoSM’s 2022 Labour Force Survey report.

Only 36.3% or 3.5 million bumiputera are counted as having had a tertiary education, which DoSM defines as “those whose highest level of education is above Form 5”.

The percentage of the labour force with tertiary education is higher among the Malaysian Chinese at 41.7% (1.41 million) as well as Malaysian Indians at 38.4% (406,800) (see Table 2).

The report also shows that nearly half, or 48.8%, of the 9.64 million employed bumiputera’s highest level of education is Form 5, or those entering the workforce after passing the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), Malaysia’s GCE O Level equivalent.

Including those who entered the workforce without completing Form 5, almost 64% of the bumiputera labour force only have primary and secondary education — higher than the 58.3% for the Chinese and 61.6% for the Indians.

That same report did not provide a breakdown on salaries. According to DoSM’s 2021 Salaries and Wages Survey report (dated October 2022), however, the median salary for those with tertiary education was RM3,794 in 2021 compared with RM1,797 for those with secondary education, RM1,448 for those with primary education and RM1,315 for those without formal education.

Skills may also compensate for tertiary education. The median income of skilled workers was RM4,471 in 2021 compared with RM1,781 for semi-skilled and RM1,601 for low-skilled workers.

The report did not provide a breakdown of salaries for skilled workers or those with tertiary education by ethnicity.

Choice of work, location
In absence of more granular details, the second and third short answer to why median incomes are lower among the bumiputera relative to those of Chinese and Indian ethnicity may have to do with strata and their choice of profession, going by the levels of median income.

Bumiputera accounted for 90.6%, or 2.09 million, of the 2.3 million Malaysians working in rural areas in 2022. DoSM data show them to be a bigger group than the 549,400 non-Malaysians employed in rural parts of the country.

Some 15.2%, or 316,800, of the 2.09 million bumiputera working in rural areas are in “elementary occupations”, less than the 386,700 non-Malaysians employed under the same category.

While those with higher skills would earn higher wages, DoSM statistics show that half of the wage earners in rural towns earned a monthly salary of RM1,520 and below in 2021 compared with a median monthly salary of RM2,438 in cities in 2021, according to DoSM data.

There were exceptions, with bumiputera employees making up 107,800 of the 190,100 professionals and 47,000 of the 64,800 managers in rural towns in 2022.

About 21.4%, or 446,600, of the 2.09 million bumiputera working in rural towns are categorised as “services and sales workers” while another 19.8%, or 412,900, are “skilled agricultural, forestry, livestock and fishery workers”.

The more recent DoSM release, the Employees’ Wages Statistics (Formal Sector) Report 1Q 2023 — which only covers about 62.1%, or 6.45 million, of the 10.38 million Malaysian wage earners or those in the formal sector — did not provide an urban-rural breakdown for median income.

About 61.4%, or 3.96 million, of the 6.45 million counted as workers in the formal sector are bumiputera while 29.4%, or 1.89 million, are Chinese and just under 8%, or 513,400, are Indians.

That leaves nearly four million in the informal sector, many of whom are likely bumiputera going by the demographics alone.

Generally low wages
For the record, among the 16.06 million employed persons at end-March 2023, 12.06 million or 75% are wage earners (10.38 million Malaysians and 1.67 million non-citizens), while 2.94 million are self-employed, 581,700 are employers and 487,900 are unpaid family workers (see Diagram 1).

Among these 6.45 million employed in the formal sector, only 5.2% or about 539,760 persons earned more than RM15,000 a month as at March this year, DoSM data shows.

To be among the top 10%, one only needs to earn above RM9,100 a month. The threshold for the top 20% is only RM5,500 (US$1,176) a month. The low wage threshold to reach the top 20% among the formal sector wage earners means the majority of wage earners have problems with low income, regardless of their ethnicity.

As at March 2023, half of the 1.89 million Malaysian Chinese in the formal sector earned less than RM4,000 a month — not exactly high income, though the median income threshold is above the RM2,200 for the 3.96 million bumiputera in the formal sector and RM2,500 among the 513,400 Malaysian Indians in the formal sector (see Diagram 2).

Half of the 6.45 million wage earners in the formal sector earned less than RM2,600 a month as at March this year.

Thanks to a higher minimum wage, those in the bottom 20% have seen a higher year-on-year climb in median incomes compared with formal sector wage earners in higher percentiles.

As at March this year, the lowest 10% earned less than RM1,482 a month, just shy of the RM1,500 minimum wage, which was only revised higher from RM1,200 for all sectors and employers effective July 1, 2023. However, the RM1,482 wage threshold for the bottom 10% as at March 2023 had already jumped RM315, or 27%, from RM1,167 at end-March 2022, given that the RM1,500 minimum wage had already applied to employers with at least five workers from May 1, 2022 (see Table 3).

With the change in the minimum wage, those earning less than RM1,000 a month fell to 3.1% (about 200,000 of 6.4506 million) as at March 2023 from 5% (about 320,000 of 6.3954 million) in March 2022. Those earning between RM1,500 and RM1,999 jumped to 24.6% from 14.6% over the same period (see Chart 1).

Experts generally agree that the low level of EPF savings has much to do with low income. Rather than dwelling on ethnicity, policy action that focuses on upskilling and creating higher-income jobs and raising economic complexity should result in greater productivity and higher wages for all Malaysians.

Source: The Edge Website

Coldplay’s The Scientist was actually sung backwar

xCM — Wed, 24 May 2023 19:37:27 +0800

[YOUTUBE]YOcyoBnwbFs[/YOUTUBE]

Coldplay’s The Scientist was actually sung backward.

QUOTE

Lens Recap: The Story Behind Coldplay's 'The Scientist'
Director Jamie Thraves explains his back-to-the-future approach.

Some videos give you thrills, some chills and some are just eye candy. Coldplay's clip for "The Scientist" is the kind that makes you wonder, "What the hell?"

Director Jamie Thraves had a great idea for a video last year, he just needed to find the right song to fit his odd notion. Then he heard the soaring Coldplay ballad "The Scientist," with its plaintive chorus about going "back to the start."

"I had this idea that I wanted to do a story that's tragic but starts off happy and ends happy, and the video is about rewinding to that happy ending," said Thraves, 33, who has directed clips for Radiohead, Blur, the Verve and Travis. Knowing that Spike Jonze had already done the backward video thing in 1996 with the Pharcyde video for "Drop," Thraves needed to find a new way to tell a narrative story that moved forward even as the action moved backward.

Once Thraves and Coldplay singer Chris Martin hashed out the idea for the clip -- in which Martin backs his way through a horrifying car crash that appears to kill his onscreen girlfriend -- the singer set about the monthlong task of studying his lyrics and learning how perform them back to front.

"The original idea was a straight narrative without the lead singer in the video," said Thraves. "But Chris wanted to be in the video and he was really excited to learn how to sing the song backward.

"He got a tape of the song recorded backward and he listened to it over and over. He's a very passionate guy, so he got really into it. What we learned later on is about the problems with phonetics, because you have to be very careful with the lip movement so that when you end on a sound your mouth is formed in the right way."

With Martin fully versed in singing in reverse, the production moved to North London for scenes of the singer walking through the streets of the city, where he cavorts with backward bicycle riders and street ballers unshooting hoops, both of which fit with lyrics about pulling puzzles apart and "questions of science." The dramatic action in the clip was then filmed in a forest outside London that previously served as a battleground in the film "Gladiator."

Martin is seen moping among upward-falling leaves and reliving a frightening car crash in which he loses control of his vehicle and plunges down a ravine, sending his formerly giggling girlfriend hurtling through the windshield. Of course, in Thraves' version, the woman is sucked back into the car through a shower of glass, the BMW rolls up a hill and the clip ends with the couple smiling and laughing as they cruise in reverse down a country lane.

As Thraves put Martin through his forward paces over the three-day shoot, the singer performed the song in a backward gibberish that the director said was akin to the fictional language Hopelandish created by Icelandic mood rockers Sigur Rós. Of course, when the video was in final edits, the roles were reversed, with the film running backward and Martin singing forward. Got it?

Wait, it gets more confusing. On a DVD released in England, a second version of the video was included where the song is backward, but the video runs forward.
https://www.mtv.com/news/5cicoa/lens-recap-...s-the-scientist

Coldplay paying tribute to Muhammad Ali in Everglo

xCM — Fri, 19 May 2023 19:17:26 +0800

Coldplay paying tribute to Muhammad Ali in Everglow. Coldplay promotes peace and unity.

QUOTE

Features an excerpt of Muhammad Ali speaking to a live studio audience in Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1977.

God is watching me
God don’t praise me because I beat Joe Frazier
God don’t give nothing about Joe Frazier
God don’t care nothing about England or America as far as real wealth... it’s all His.
He wants to know how do we treat each other?
How do we help each other?
So I’m going to dedicate my life to using my name and popularity to helping charities, helping people, uniting people, people bombing each other because of religious beliefs. We need somebody in the world to help us all make peace.
So when I die - if there’s a heaven - I’m gonna see it.

Skip to 4:10.

[YOUTUBE]xn_1hFdE-5g[/YOUTUBE]

Tesla extreme heat test drive at 50 Celcius

xCM — Fri, 19 May 2023 13:46:52 +0800

[YOUTUBE]pOOnrbXVmUU[/YOUTUBE]

Tesla extreme heat testing at 50 Celcius

Has casual BM evolved so much?

xCM — Sat, 13 May 2023 22:35:02 +0800

While watching car accident video, came across this. How many of ya able to read 2/3 of his sentences?

QUOTE

@cub64
Soheh... mntg ni telan pil aremin 5.. bukey sbb dop segar... dier jd agresif lajok... dier mri koya ikt suko dio... dio mri kaya ats muto.. sedak2 tgh koya..phtu kejut ke hon.. akpe dop mroh.. sbb ilang kaya pil dio tu.. potong slalu...tu jd agresif hor.., biar dier saloh pun.. tetap berkeras salah org laen... klu lwn mulut.. mmg menang ke dier dh sbb kaya pil.. seney ja caro nk lesa... kantak je trs..

Video sbg upah

[YOUTUBE]bMOEKu8lY7w[/YOUTUBE]

Sarahan siapa?

xCM — Sat, 13 May 2023 15:10:15 +0800

[twt]https://twitter.com/cctvidiots/status/1657178659046977537[/twt]

satisfying flip tho

Ding Liren China’s first World Chess Championship

xCM — Sun, 07 May 2023 17:16:28 +0800

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For the interested one, it all started from here
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The Future of Driving - Crab Driving by Hyundai

xCM — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 16:15:45 +0800

[YOUTUBE]MstjI6HZ5AE[/YOUTUBE]

Ramai puji tindakan abang ni

xCM — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 01:50:38 +0800

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Ramai puji tindakan abang ni, tengok apa dia buat

Kenyan ‘starvation cult’

xCM — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 15:22:42 +0800

Kenyan ‘starvation cult’ investigation continues with 47 bodies found so far.

[YOUTUBE]0Ft5mbRDQV0[/YOUTUBE]

Please exercise rational decision.

Sekian, sila bersurai secara aman dan teratur.

Sam Ke Ting meminta maaf

xCM — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 23:30:33 +0800

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Hope she gains strength and recovers from the trauma.

“Kalau mahu keluar, keluar sahaja,” said speaker

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0800

Ryuichi Sakamoto, Oscar Japanese composer RIP

xCM — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 14:37:14 +0800

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Why Hunting For 'Mad Honey' Is One Of Dangerous

xCM — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 13:34:49 +0800

Why Hunting For 'Mad Honey' Is One Of The Most Dangerous Jobs In Nepal

For centuries, the Gurungs, an indigenous people, have been the only ones to harvest "mad honey" from their cliff in Nepal. The honey has hallucinogenic properties and finding it is a big part of the Gurungs' culture. We followed the village's main honey hunter to find out why this ancient tradition is still happening and what makes it such a risky business.

Have you tried?

[YOUTUBE]ajG3eMB5AJM[/YOUTUBE]

Why Switzerland Has 374,142 Bunkers (maybe more)

xCM — Sun, 19 Mar 2023 01:47:17 +0800

[YOUTUBE]9bPIaHg11mI[/YOUTUBE]

World: does something that is somewhat unstable
The Swiss: starts digging furiously

Dopper, The Most Dangerous Special Forces Training

xCM — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 00:31:41 +0800

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Special Forces Training. Dopper as they call, is one of the most dangerous military training in the world. According to the Indonesian military, the ‘Dopper’ training is designed to mentally toughen special forces soldiers and instill self control by replicating real-world conditions they could face during combat, with all live firing done by experienced sharp-shooters.

Some pretty wild footage from Indonesia shows instructors firing rifle rounds to within inches of their troops who are crawling through a mud pit below. This type of training is designed to instill some level of stress on recruits, and the US Military has versions of live-fire training like this, too. Only, in the US Military, the rounds are flying dozens of feet over the low-crawling servicemembers versus hitting the dirt. Bullets do all sorts of weird stuff when they impact something, like ricochet, deflect, and bounce. It's only a matter of time before training turns into fratricide.... - @RonnieFit

Preacher Slams Blackpink’s Concert for Not Being C

xCM — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 21:36:36 +0800

Preacher Slams Blackpink’s Concert for Not Being Cancelled Despite Flash Floods in Several States

Blackpink’s concert is scheduled to go on tonight (March 4) and many fans have been excited since the concert’s announcement last year. Despite the rainy weather for the past few days, it looks like the concert is set to proceed, but a local preacher is not happy about it.

In case you are not aware, districts in Pahang and Johor have been hit by flash floods, with the latter being the worst. At the time of writing, more than 30,000 victims in Johor alone are affected by the disaster, with evacuation work still ongoing. The death toll has risen to 3 and despite the disaster, this preacher, PU Syed is upset the concert in Bukit Jalil is still happening, with many fans eager to attend the event.

“Johor, Pahang and Sarawak are suffering due to the flood, and Blackpink’s concert is still being organised!”

In his Facebook post last night (March 3), Syed expressed his disappointment and said that despite the multiple disasters, many people are still focused on having fun. This is not Syed’s first time in voicing out his stand against organising concerts in Malaysia, as well as calling out for the ban of the Pulau movie a couple of months back.

Seeing how his voice is unheard, he said that he is running out of strength to stop the concerts from being organised in the country, and there is nothing much that he can do except for hoping that people may not be able to attend the concert tonight in Bukit Jalil.

QUOTE

“I hope the Stadium is hit by the flood so that they can enjoy the concert in the flood!”

Despite the call for the ban of concerts in the country, another preacher said that organising concerts is not an issue as long as the performance and the songs are not influencing the concertgoers in a bad way.

Regardless, Blackpink fans appear to be ready and excited for the concert tonight despite the uncertainties in the weather. Are you attending the show?

https://worldofbuzz.com/preacher-slams-blac...v7PTPtfdSo7ruiM

Modular camera in phone

xCM — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 07:07:00 +0800

Modular camera in phone is the way forward. Don't see why consumer should buy new lens with new phone purchase.

This opens up for new and quality lens from leica, fujifilm, sigma and the big brands.

Sekian.