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Showing posts with label Forbes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forbes. Show all posts

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Dangerous Older Drivers: A Car is a Lethal Weapon


“She only drives to the store”.

“He doesn’t drive at night, he just drives to the doctor and to church”.

Imagine the justifications people can invent to allow dangerous aging parents to stay behind the wheel. These are statements from family members whose elder is no longer safe to drive, but they’re still driving.  No one has the guts to ask Dad or Mom to stop.   Since most accidents happen within 3 miles of home, the “only to church” or “only to the store” is not safer than anywhere else.

The National Safety Council publishes a journal called Family Safety and Health, and in its Fall, 2012 issue, an article, “Time to Hand Over the Keys” appears.  I was interviewed for the article.  As a former personal injury lawyer, I represented hundreds of victims of car accidents, some caused by older drivers who never should have been on the road.  That dangerous driver could be your dad, your grandma or your aunt.  The next generation needs to see the problem and face the fear about confronting it.

Research indicates that most people, when approached respectfully, will voluntarily give up driving.  However, “ most people” does not include the very stubborn, those in denial, and those elders with the kind of cognitive impairment that prevents them from actually understanding how impaired they are.  With those folks, their families desperately need a strategy.

Here’s a sampling of parts from the strategy I advocate that you use.

First, recognize the problem.  A car is a lethal weapon whether your elder is driving it a block from home or across the city.  It is not a safer weapon because your elder is closer to home.  That’s a fanatasy. Give it up. I met an 84 year old who was behind the wheel when he accidentally hit and killed his best friend in the driveway of his own apartment building.

Next, be honest and respectful and talk to your aging loved one about his or her driving. If you’ve see grandma careen across the street cutting off other cars, unaware of their presence, it’s time to gently ask her to give up the keys.  Try a one-on -one conversation first.

Next, add allies to your approach if the one-on-one is not successful.  Bring in a trusted friend, other family, or anyone Dad likes best.  Bring up the subject kindly and with acknowledgement that giving up driving is huge and that it means losing independence.  Use an outside professional if this doesn’t work.

Make alternative transportation arrangements.  If your elder lives in an urban area, many resources may be available for elders, from community vans to carpools from senior centers.  Beware of putting cognitively impaired elders on buses. They may be confused and get lost.  Rural dwellers must usually rely on family and friends to transport them.  The burden on adult children may stop them from facing the issue of a parent’s dangerous driving.

If the elder is too dangerous to continue driving, get rid of the car if you can.  Sometimes a caregiver can do the driving and the aging person keeps the car. If there is no caregiver or someone else’s car is used to transport, the elder’s car is a sad reminder and a temptation you don’t want kept in the driveway.  It’s too easy for Dad to get a duplicate set of keys made.

Use the law as a last resort.  The primary care doctor may be of help if willing to report the danger or need for retesting to the department of motor vehicles.  Some states allow you to report a dangerous driver and ask for license retesting anonymously.  The courts can be used to protect elders who are a danger to themselves or others. Guardianship can be used in extreme cases to give family permission to take the car away.

Some older drivers are fine, like my mother in law, Alice, 90.  She limits her driving to daytime. She is still quite sharp, has a great memory and sense of direction and pays attention to what is on the road.  I wouldn’t classify her as dangerous, but she’s in the minority at her age.

Asking an aging loved one to give up driving takes courage. It can draw extreme resistance, anger and refusal.  Facing that possibility requires a plan and perhaps a family conference before approaching a particularly difficult elder.  I urge you to find your courage if your elder is scaring you when he or she gets behind the wheel.  Sometimes elders know it’s time and will give up driving willingly when asked.  You might be lucky.  In any event, it’s time to take your chances if this article reminds you of anyone close to you.

Carolyn Rosenblatt
By Carolyn Rosenblatt, Forbes Contributor

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Friday, September 23, 2011

Soros makes Forbes Top 10 rich list






SINGAPORE: Microsoft founder Bill Gates has retained his top spot on the Forbes 2011 ranking of the richest people in America with US$59bil.

The number two spot went to Warren Buffett with US$39bil and Larry Ellison (No. 3) with US$33bil.

George Soros (pic), in seventh spot, joins the Top 10 for the first time, with US$22bil, and is one of the 27 hedge fund managers – 7% of the Forbes 400 – featured in Hedged Fortunes.

George Soros
This year, entrepreneurs dominate the ranks, comprising an all-time high of 70% of the Forbes 400 members.

Enthusiasm for popular brands, like Starbucks and Forever 21, has helped boost some fortunes, while the spread of social media has sparked others.

The combined wealth of America’s richest is US$1.5 trillion, with an average net worth of US$3.8bil, reflecting a 12% uptick from 2010.

Wealth was up for 262 members of this year’s list, while 72 members saw a decline.



The Forbes 400 welcomed 18 new members in 2011 (Fresh faces), including Sean Parker (No. 200) who rocked the music industry with Napster and helped build Facebook (agent of disruption), John Henry (No. 375), majority owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC, Jeffrey Skoll (No. 139) whose Participant Media’s most recent release, “The Help”, has grossed nearly US$143mil to date and Forever 21’s Jin Sook & Do Won Chang (No. 88).

Every member of the Top 20 gained wealth this year, with the exception of Buffett, down US$6bil from 2010, the largest dollar amount loss of any 400 member.

The year’s biggest dollar gainer is Mark Zuckerberg (No. 14), who cracked the Top 20 with a gain of US$10.6bil.

Among the 42 women on the list are media mogul Oprah Winfrey (No. 139) newcomer Gayle Cook (No. 96) and Meg Whitman (No. 331). – Bernama

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Up Close and Personal with Steve Forbes





By TEE LIN SAY and JOHN LOH starbiz@thestar.com.my

Friday, September 9, 2011

What Is the Chinese Dream?




What Is the Chinese Dream? -- Part II 




Monday, August 29, 2011

Rage of the youth is growing !





By Pankaj Mishra, Guardian News & Media Ltd

Even in the West there is little chance of stable jobs or affordable education. A secure and dignified life seems even more remote for most. Across the world, the rage will grow.

Supporters of Anna Hazare wave Indian flags and shout slogansImage Credit: AP
  • Supporters of Anna Hazare wave Indian flags and shout slogans during 12th day of Hazare's fast against corruption in New Delhi on Saturday.

In India, tens of thousands of middle-class people respond to a quasi-Gandhian activist's call for a second freedom struggle — this time, against the country's venal "brown masters", as one protester told the Wall Street Journal. Middle-class Israelis demanding "social justice" turn out for their country's first major demonstrations in years. In China, the state broadcaster CCTV unprecedentedly joins millions of cyber-critics in blaming a government that placed wealth creation above social welfare for the fatal high-speed train crash last month.

Add to this the uprisings against kleptocracies in Egypt and Tunisia, the street protests in Greece and Spain, and you are looking at a fresh political awakening. The grievances may be diversely phrased, but public anger derives from the same source: extreme and seemingly insurmountable inequality.

As Forbes magazine, that well-known socialist tool, describes it, protesters everywhere are driven by "the conviction that the power structure, corporate and government, work together to screw the broad middle class" (and the working class too, whose distress is not usually examined in Forbes).

For years now, the mantra of ‘econ-omic growth' justified government interventions on behalf of big business and investors with generous tax breaks (and, in the West, the rescue of criminally reckless speculators with massive bailouts). The fact that a few people get very rich while the majority remains poor seemed of little importance as long as the GDP figures looked impressive.



In heavily populated countries like India, even a small number of people moving into the middle class made for an awe-inspiring spectacle.

Helped by a ‘patriotic' corporate media, you could easily ignore the bad news — the suicides, for instance, of hundreds of thousands of farmers. However, the illusions of globalisation shattered when even its putative beneficiaries — the educated and aspiring classes — began to hurt from high inflation, decreasing access to education and other opportunities for upward mobility.

False promises

Economic growth is no defence against the frustration of the semi-empowered. The economies of both India and Israel have recorded dramatic growth in recent years. But inequality has also grown spectacularly. The Financial Times, which recently compared India's oligarchic business families to Russia's mafia-capitalists, pointed out two weeks ago that "the 10 largest business families in Israel own about 30 per cent of the stock market value" while one quarter of Israeli families live below the poverty line.

Last month the Indian supreme court blamed increasing social violence in the country on the "false promises of ever-increasing spirals of consumption leading to economic growth that will lift everyone".

Obviously it is not the supreme court's remit to define India's economic policies. Nor should Anna Hazare be entrusted with establishing the office of an anti-corruption ombudsman, a mission that amounts to nothing in a country littered with compromised and impotent institutions.

Still, they respond, however incoherently, to a crisis of legitimacy afflicting their country's highest institutions, and their supposed watchdog, the media.

In the last decade, billionaires, ‘billionaire-friendly' legislators and CEO-worshipping journalists have together constituted what the political economist Ha Joon Chang calls a "powerful propaganda machine, a financial-intellectual complex backed by money and power".

Nevertheless, the real facts about ‘economic growth' are getting through to those most vulnerable to it in both the east and the west: the young.

Denouncing "the corruption among politicians, businessmen and bankers" that leaves "us helpless, without a voice", the manifesto of the Spanish indignados could have been authored by the Indian supporters of Hazare.

Even as they export jobs and capital to Asia, economic globalisers in the West continue to preach the importance of upgrading skills at home. Yet the dead-end of globalisation looms clearly before Europe and America's youth: little chance of stable employment, or even affordable education.

The violence in European cities this year comes at the end of a long cycle of steady socio-economic growth. In postcolonial India and China this cycle had barely begun before it began to splutter. A secure and dignified life seems even more remote for most.

Worried by the prospect of social unrest, China's leaders frankly describe their nation's apparently booming economy as "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and ultimately unsustainable".

The Chinese philosopher Zhang Junmai once wrote that an agrarian country has few ‘material demands' and can exist over a long period of time with ‘poverty but equality, scarcity but peace'. Returning to an austere age of wisely managed expectations is no longer possible — even if it was desirable. It remains to be seen what political forms this summer's unrest will take. But there is no doubt that many more people across a wide swathe of the world will awaken with rage to what Zhang warned against: "A condition of prosperity without equality, wealth without peace."

Pankaj Mishra's new book The Revenge of the East will be published next year

Friday, March 4, 2011

Rich Malaysians get richer!

Kuok and Ananda continue to be cream of Malaysia’s wealthiest



KUALA LUMPUR: The 40 wealthiest Malaysians are worth US$62.1bil (RM188.32bil), up by US$11.1bil (RM33.7bil) compared with last year, according to the latest rich list published by Forbes Asia.
In a statement yesterday, Forbes Asia said the combined wealth was almost 22% more than the list in 2010.

“The better coffers come on the back of the country’s healthy economy which grew 7.2% last year, the highest rate since 2000,” it said.


The first two spots were still occupied by Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien and Tan Sri T. Ananda Krishnan, respectively.

Kuok, 87, has held pole position since 2006 when Forbes Asia began ranking the 40 richest Malaysians.
He was worth US$12.5bil (RM38bil), up by half a billion from last year.

His biggest source of wealth was his stake in Wilmar International, the world’s largest listed palm oil company.

Ananda, 72, was at No 2 with US$9.5bil (RM28.83bil), up from US$8.1bil (RM24.6bil) last year.
His Maxis Communications Bhd is Malaysia’s biggest cellphone service provider.

At No 3 is this year’s biggest gainer in dollar terms, Puan Sri Lee Kim Hua. The 81-year-old, widow of casino magnate Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, was one of three women on the list this year.

Her Genting shares took off when the company’s Singapore operations on Sentosa Island opened, boosting the family’s net worth by US$2.7bil (RM8.2bil) to US$6.6bil (RM20.03bil) from a year ago.

Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng, who built IOI Group into one of the world’s biggest palm oil producers, fell down a spot at No 4 with a net worth of $5bil (RM15.2bil), up by US$400mil (RM1.21bil) from last year.

AirAsia Bhd’s Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes, budget airline pioneer and Forbes Asia’s 2010 Businessman of the Year, was ranked No 20 this year, down one spot from last year despite his wealth increasing to US$470mil (RM1.43bil) from US$330mil (RM1bil) last year.

The only newcomer this year was Chia Song Kun at No 24 with US$400mil (RM1.21bil).  The share price of his QL Resources Bhd, the seafood, egg production and palm oil company, has doubled since last year.

Datuk Tony Tiah Thee Kian at No 35 was the only returnee to the list after a year’s absence as stocks in his TA Enterprise Bhd have recovered. He was worth US$170mil (RM516mil).

Not all did well, however, as there were three this year who saw their wealth reduced, led by Tan Sri Vincent Tan at No 9.

The self-made entrepreneur, who runs Berjaya Group, saw his wealth decline to US$1.25bil (RM3.8bil) from US$1.6bil (RM4.9bil) last year.

Timber tycoon Tan Sri Tiong Hiew King was the only person who did not see any changes to his wealth. He was still worth US$1.2bil (RM3.64bil) and ranked No 10.

The rich get richer 

Five more billionaires

This year’s list contains 27 billionaires, five more than the previous list. As for newcomers, there are three, with two making their debut.

While last year, a tycoon on the Main Market had to have at least RM386 million to make the rich list, this year the figure has shot up to RM524 million. Comparatively, the richest tycoon on the ACE Market is valued at RM103 million.

Interestingly, the bulk of the fortune of this year’s list lies in the Top 10, whose collective wealth of RM168.01 billion alone surpasses that of the whole of last year’s list totaling RM156.7 billion! Six out of these 10 registered increases of close to 50% and more in their wealth.

Thus it would appear that these individuals were able to return stronger in 2011 through the increase in the share prices of their companies. Even so, people close to these tycoons will attest that the road to riches is hardly a smooth one, needing guts, an astute business sense, and smart corporate maneuvering to win the confidence of investors.

Singapore-domiciled Ong Beng Seng makes his entry to the Top 10 ranks thanks to the surging valuation of his British-listed Mulberry Group Plc. His wealth doubled to RM3.98 billion from a year ago, taking him past Berjaya Group’s Tan Sri Vincent Tan who drops two rungs to 12.

Telecommunications tycoon closes in

T Ananda Krishnan, who for most years had to play second fiddle to first-placed Robert Kuok, closes the gap considerably this year. With a fortune estimated at RM45.78 billion, the telecommunications magnate is now only some RM5 billion away from Kuok’s RM50.04 billion.

The upturn in Ananda’s fortune comes following his move last year to take private three of his companies – incidentally at prices substantially more than what they were trading at in January 2010. This buyout hat trick involving Tanjong Plc, Astro All Asia Networks Plc and Meast Global Bhd had shocked the market, fuelling speculation that the tycoon was looking to exit the local scene.

However, this was not the case. Going by his track record, these companies will likely be relisted some day in the future and come back stronger, as in the case of his Maxis Bhd.

Last year, Ananda also sold his interest in Singapore-listed Overseas Union Enterprise (OUE) to Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group.

In the case of Kuok, he could be worth more if not for China’s aggressive policy measures to cool its overheating economy, which weighed down on the billionaire’s Chinese property investment values, spearheaded through companies like Kerry Properties Ltd and Shangri-La Asia Ltd.

That aside, last year was a memorable one for the Hong Kong-based tycoon who made a quick and dramatic return to the sugar business via Singapore-listed Wilmar International Ltd’s takeover of Australian-based CSR Ltd’s sugar unit, Sucrogen.

As for banker Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow of Public Bank Bhd, a close to 20% rise in his personal value sees him displacing IOI Corporation Bhd’s Tan Sri Lee Sing Cheng from his third-placed perch.

Standing firm in their places

There were no changes in the fifth to ninth rankings. Genting Bhd’s Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay’s wealth growth may appear paltry this year but this was because of the assumption we made previously that he was the major beneficiary of the two family trust funds he created after the demise of his father and Genting founder, Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong.

Recent annual reports now reveal that he owns only one-third of one of the trusts, Parkview Management Sdn Bhd, which wholly owns Kien Huat Realty Sdn Bhd, which in turns owns 39.52% of Genting.

But even with the less than 5% rise at RM10.89 billion, Lim still retains his fifth spot.

His mum, Puan Sri Lee Kim Hua, is richer by 69% and, at RM7.42 billion, is the country’s wealthiest woman.

Hong Leong Group’s Tan Sri Quek Leng Chan and MMC Corporation Bhd’s Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary saw almost a 50% growth in their financial worth in tandem with increases in their stockholding values. Quek is estimated to be worth RM10.75 billion while Syed Mokhtar is valued at RM8.84 billion.

Tan Sri Tiong Hiew King, who derives the bulk of his wealth from his vast timber assets, remains at number nine and is estimated to be worth 40% more following improved timber prices. The Rimbunan Hijau Group founder is worth RM4.77 billion.

Enjoying substantial gains

Back to the overall list, other tycoons who registered substantial gains in their wealth are Tan Sri Lau Cho Kun of Hap Seng Consolidated Bhd and AirAsia Bhd duo Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes and Datuk Kamarudin Meranun.

Sabah-based Lau’s wealth soared more than 200% on the back of richer valuations of his Hap Seng to propel him to number 18 from 31 previously. He is valued at RM1.77 billion, making him one of the five new billionaires on the list.

AirAsia’s chief executive officer Fernandes also strengthens his position, gaining him entry into the billionaires’ club with a fortune of RM1.043 billion, up 80% from previously. His business partner Kamarudin is valued at RM856.02 million, which moves him up nine rungs.

The bullish market sentiment over the past year also sees the five sons of Tan Sri Yeoh Tiong Lay joining the billionaires’ league. Together with the senior Yeoh, the family is worth a cool RM6.7 billion.

Declining wealth

This year we have five tycoons recording a decline in their financial worth as opposed to 2010, when everyone had registered an increase.

Berjaya Group’s Vincent Tan, whose wealth is down by some 30%, registered the biggest drop that saw him exiting the Top 10. Other tycoons with declining wealth numbers were Top Glove Corporation Bhd’s Tan Sri Dr Lim Wee-Chai, Samling Group’s Datuk Yaw Teck Seng, KNM Group’s Lee Swee Eng and TA Enterprise Bhd’s Datuk Tony Tiah.

Two tycoons were forced off the list – Tan Sri Kua Sia Kooi of Kurnia Asia Bhd and Tan Sri Rozali Ismail of Puncak Niaga Holdings Bhd. Kua’s wealth halved to RM291 million following the decline in the market capitalization of his flagship. Rozali saw his wealth drop about 20% to RM395.66 million as the impasse in the consolidation of water assets took a toll on the company’s share valuations.

Despite his wealth growing by more than 25%, CIMB Group’s chief executive, Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, does not make the cut this time around as other newcomers propelled in at a higher worth. As at Jan 21, his 0.78% stake in the banking giant is valued at RM483.52 million as opposed to RM386 million previously, and this puts him just past our cut-off point at number 41.

Welcome, the new and not so new

Of the newcomers to the list, Tan Sri Leong Hoy Kum earns his wealth from property via his flagship Mah Sing Group Bhd, while Datuk Seri Stanley Thai rides on the glove-making company he founded, Supermax Corporation Bhd.

Leong enters at 35th spot with a wealth level of RM618.40 million and Stanley Thai at 39 with a fortune estimated at RM538.73 million.

The third newcomer, Datuk Tan Heng Chew of Tan Chong Motors Holdings Bhd, is not entirely a new face, as he makes a comeback after an absence of two years. At 38th spot, he is valued at RM556.82 million.