Downside of Facebook

Grouses are mounting on the use of Facebook.

According to a recent report, less and less young people in the UK are turning to drugs, partly because they are too busy on Facebook or sending text messages.

“It could be, if they are on Blackberry all the time, that that’s the way they socialise and communicate; you don’t want to be doing that and having a spliff at the same time.” Or so an expert said recently.

Like, why not? Why would having a spliff (joint) stop you from getting on Facebook or sending your friends a text message, or vice versa?

“Just wanted to say high, everybody!” you could write on your Facebook timeline, thereby satisfying two addictions at the same time: the need to get high on drugs, and the need to say “hi” on the Internet.

It also seems that a large number of people go on Facebook when they are drunk, so much so that a browser extension has been developed to prevent them from making embarrassing drunken comments like, “Jenny, you hag. I’m so glad I dumped you.”

Or “My boss sucks big time”. After overlooking the fact that their boss is actually one of their Facebook friends.

Apparently, the software will ask you to do something that only a sober person can do – like recite the alphabet backwards or trace a moving object across a computer screen with your index finger. I’m not sure if I can recite the alphabet backwards with any sort of speed while completely sober, never mind after a couple of glasses of merlot.

If I really wanted to get my message online, I would probably cheat by writing out the alphabet from beginning to end, making it easier to recite it backwards. If you’re really drunk, and you really want to do something, you will find a way.

Of course, after all that faffing around you might get online only to forget what it was that you wanted to say on Facebook. Then your bladder might take charge, so all you get to write is, “Going for a pee, be back in a sec.”

In some Western countries, Facebook’s popularity is waning, with more and more people pulling the plug on their social media accounts.

For example, an increasing number of Australians claim that Facebook promotes a culture of “narcissism and self-absorption.” They are fed up with the constant flow of inane comments like: “Going for a pee, be back in a sec.” Some want to delete their online presence but are afraid of losing contact with their friends.

I’m not sure how that works. If your family and friends make inane, narcissistic comments online, to the extent that you’re irritated by them, why would you want to keep in touch with them anyway?

All you have to do is “unfriend” the irritating narcissistic people in your network and you will be left with people who don’t irritate you – possibly people you have never met before or hardly know.

Another grouse with Facebook comes from former couples who have just split up. It seems that it is easier to extricate yourself from someone in the real world than it is online.

If your ex is one of your Facebook friends, all you have to do is delete him/her, but what about all your mutual friends? If you make an inane comment on Facebook about your current depressed mood, something like, “Bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh ...”, what’s to stop a mutual friend from writing a response to your comment, thereby enabling your ex to witness your friend’s comment and your depressive state?

Indeed, what’s to stop the person who unceremoniously dumped you from writing a comment on a mutual friend’s timeline to the effect that they have met someone new: the soul mate that they have been waiting for their entire life? And what’s to stop all your mutual friends from “liking” that comment? And you get to watch it all as it unfolds.

Feeling crushed and humiliated, you might want to go out and get drunk. There’s a good chance that you get so inebriated that you want to express yourself online. And there’s also a good chance that your determination ensures you can recite the alphabet backwards and you successfully log onto Facebook.

With a bit of luck, before you have the chance to write anything incriminating about your ex, you might need to go for a pee.

BUT THEN AGAIN BY MARY SCHNEIDER
> Check out Mary on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mary.schneider.writer. Reader response can be directed to star2@thestar.com.my

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Japan rocking the boat to make waves, mostly hitting itself

Japan is striking out diplomatically and politically, hitting mostly itself so far.

IF any country ever wanted to make Japan look bad and feel worse, it could not have done more than Japan itself over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

All parties claiming the five uninhabited Pinnacle (Diaoyu for China, Senkaku for Japan and Tiaoyutai for Taiwan) Islands had long accepted the status quo of lingering disputes because the risk of fighting was too high for any provocative action.

For much of that time, national sensitivities in the disputes were strong enough to ensure that the status quo prevailed.

In the early 1990s for example, a Chinese general declared that the PLA (Navy) would come to Taiwan’s aid if any country challenged Taipei’s claim. Intriguingly, this was despite China and Taiwan occasionally having to work out their differences over their rival claims.

The writing on the wall was that whatever the differences across the Taiwan Straits, China was protective of Taiwan precisely because of its claim to Taipei itself. Taiwan did not question or reject Beijing’s position then or since: Taipei did not regard China’s stand as compromising the US commitment to protecting Taiwan.

This year Vietnam and the Philippines also tangled with China over other rival claims in the South China Sea, with its own separate dynamics. But if any Japanese official thought that would leave China weary enough to be pushed on the defensive, he would soon realise his mistake.

Disputed claims in the East China Sea involving China, South Korea and Japan are also a measure of Chinese and Korean bitterness over Japan’s wartime atrocities in their respective territories.

Both China and Korea suffered gravely under Imperial Japan, and regard modern Japan as insufficiently owning up to its horrific past to make amends for it. Thus Japan’s posturing over disputed territory readily inflames government positions and popular sentiment in China and Korea.

Talk of Japan considering the “purchase” of the Pinnacle Islands from a private owner early this year provoked Beijing and put Seoul on notice. As the purchase drew near in early August, Tokyo released a Defence White Paper re-asserting its claim to the disputed Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo in Korea, Takeshima in Japan).

Within days South Korean President Lee Myung-bak repeated his country’s claim to the territory by personally visiting it, the first for any Korean leader. Japanese officials lambasted his presence there, but media opinion in Japan cautioned against Tokyo overstretching itself with multiple disputes simultaneously.

The idea of purchasing the Pinnacles came in April from the incendiary nationalist Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara. His personal politics has enraged China and Korea, with denials of the Japanese massacre of Chinese civilians in Nanjing and the forced sex slavery of Korean (“comfort”) women.

Economy affected

Meanwhile Japanese officials continued to bait China. Last month Japan “nationalised” the islands.
China protested, and anti-Japanese demonstrations erupted in dozens of cities. Protesters targeted retail outlets, resulting in closures and cutbacks in production and distribution.

Employment in China suffered somewhat, but Japan’s economic standing suffered more. Last Thursday an editorial in the Yomiuri Shimbun cited an industry survey indicating Japanese business sentiment in September to be the worst this year.

The commentary quoted the survey as seeing “a bleak outlook... ahead,” with the “scenario... coming off the rails.” It noted that the survey had been done before the latest spat with China, so the situation after September would be worse.

Meanwhile Japanese officials reprimanded China for allowing the anti-Japanese protests to occur. For many in China, Japan’s deliberate act of sealing ownership of the islands by officially nationalising them showed even greater irresponsibility.

Strategically, Japan’s action also brought Taiwan and China closer together against it. Policymakers in Tokyo had not only shot themselves in both feet, but failed to understand what had happened.

Writing in Forbes magazine, Stephen Harner said Japan’s action was “an unmitigated disaster” because economically Japan needed China much more than China needed it. He said “the fundamental truth” was that while China could easily get what it needed from other major suppliers, not so Japan.

Later Harner examined Article 5 of the US-Japan Treaty and questioned a US commitment to defend Japan if hostilities broke out over disputed islands. He noted that after the US Defence Secretary told Japan to behave better on his way to Beijing, Leon Panetta told China that the US was neutral over the dispute and even discussed future US-China military cooperation.

Harner then interviewed Prof Susumu Yabuki, a leading China expert who had warned of the current problems and advocates replacing the US-Japan Treaty with a more realistic “US-China co-dependency.”

After weighing discussions between Japanese and Chinese leaders recently and in the past, Hamer found the current impasse the wilful legacy of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Japan’s foreign ministry.

Confrontational

In the Washington Post, Chico Harlan reasoned that Japan was becoming more confrontational diplomatically and militarily as China’s rise became more evident. While describing Noda as hawkish, he said all Noda’s likely successors would be even more so.

Columnist Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times reflected on his own longstanding interest in the Pinnacles, observing that the US claimed to be neutral but was actually on Japan’s side. After assessing China’s and Japan’s island claims, Kristof found China’s case to be more persuasive.

In Taiwan’s The China Post, columnist Frank Ching noted that the Chinese government and public both regarded the US as “very much on Japan’s side,” and that Washington should help “calm the conflict it helped create.” Ching mentioned a Chinese foreign ministry document detailing how in the 1951 San Francisco Treaty granting the US trusteeship, Washington “arbitrarily expanded its jurisdiction (over the Ryukyu Islands) to include (the Pinnacles).”

Like Harner, Ching Cheong in Singapore’s The Straits Times found the current problems the clear result of Japan’s actions. He also found Japan not only unable to contain the Pinnacles situation, but opening another can of worms in the disputed Ryukyus (Liuqiu).

He traced China’s connection to these islands to AD621, long before Japan annexed them in 1879. Ching Cheong noted that since the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, both the US and the Soviet Union agreed that the islands should be returned to China.

However, with the Cold War the US handed administration of the islands to Japan, for sovereignty to be decided later between Beijing and Tokyo. This vagueness later combined with self-interest to produce the present mess.

The 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Statement establishing diplomatic relations between China and Japan later required post-war Japan to abide by the conditions of the two declarations. Whether Japan succeeds or fails in that will determine its future, which shall entirely be its own making.

Japan’s ambassador to China Uichiro Niwa had advised against Japan’s confrontational course, but instead of being taken seriously was sacked. Then his replacement suddenly died, and Niwa had to return to the post until another replacement, heightening Japan’s sense of impotent angst.

It’s just not Japan’s year, or century.

On Sept 25 the foreign ministers of Japan and China met in the first of a series of talks to cool down a volatile situation. They may realise that their greatest challenge is not each other’s government, but their own respective publics and popular sentiment on the streets.

Behind The Headlines By Bunn Nagara

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How will the Malaysia's Tax Budget 2013 affect your sales and cashflow?

I AM back. A hilarious quip by cigar chomping Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Expendables 2 as he signals his return to Hollywood after serving two terms as the governor of California, one of the largest economies in the world.

Without any political or state administrative experience, he was famous for his continuous high-deficit budgets while governing California State. Popular budgets that kept his constituents happy and his seat safe.

So are you happy with the recent Budget 2013? If you are a low wage earner pulling in below RM3,000 a month, you should be. Lots of goodies dished out in the race to earn your votes with promises of more to come by both political groups. At least the national wealth is distributed to the needy mass and not leaked to the greedy few.

Billions of ringgit will be circulating in the economy by year end as the additional bonuses for the civil servants kick in, which is good news for our domestic consumption. Hopefully, this cash handouts from heaven is used wisely to reduce personal debt first and the balance spent in our domestic market. Which means we will be better insulated against the fast deteriorating external economies of other regions.

So how will the entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises benefit from this budget?

Only certain industries will benefit from the tax breaks announced. I heard the travel agents are putting in additional mileage to get many Malaysians out of the country and get any kind of foreign tourist in.

Most working mothers do not have to fret if their maids run away as there will thousands of daycare and pre-schools sprouting up all over the country.

And if everybody insist on “kurang-kurang manis” on all their teh tarik and kopi tarik, Mr. Mamak will have no reason to increase the price of the cuppa.

Normally, the rich are not affected by most national budgets. Unless, of course, if you are French because their new government is planning to levy a 75% income tax rate on all citizens who make more than a million euros a year. This has caused an exodus of French investment bankers to work in London and I understand that they have started taking English language lessons.

For a lower 45% tax bracket, the elite French is willing to tolerate inferior language and inferior food. Just to show how national budgets and changes in tax rates can affect people's lives.

If you are on your own, there are only two key business issues that you need to understand as you interpret the new budget and new tax proposals. How will it affect your sales and how will it affect your cashflow?

Whatever business you are in, your sales is determined by your customers' ability to purchase, which means you have to follow the trail of money. New initiatives or projects by the Government means new opportunities.

Try to spot windfall sales potential. Like the group of car salesman plonking themselves into Felda settlements getting the going-to-be rich settlers to sign order forms for new cars way before the cash came in. Just follow the money, get there early and you will be fine.

As for cashflow, if you cannot afford to hire a chief financial officer, I suggest you get a good qualified tax adviser to help you understand how the changes in tax policies will affect your business.

If you know how to take advantage of the tax breaks and tax allowances, you will save a tremendous amount of cashflow by virtue of paying less tax legitimately.

You will learn to structure your business model according to the most tax-effective way of increasing your cashflow. Just remember, an efficient tax model is useless if it is not backed up by an equally efficient accounting system.

In short, entrepreneurs should focus equally on sales, finance and tax. To make a profit, you need to sell with a good gross margin and control your expenses. To make more after tax profits from the same sale, have proper tax planning.

If your paper profit is translated into cash in the bank, then your tax planning is in good order. If you have only paper profit and no cash to show, it is time to sit down with your accountants and tax advisors. Ask them to show you the money. Which should translate into a solid cashflow strategy.

For many chief executive officers and chief financial officers, the silly budget season is in full swing now. The board of directors are waiting anxiously as to what final numbers will be in the 2013 forecast. With such uncertainty in the domestic and world economy, the only thing certain in the forecast budget will be the half facts, half truths and brilliant guesswork.

Strangely enough, I have never bothered much with forecast budgets all my life. As long as my business model is well structured with an efficient tax plan, I only concentrate on bringing in the sales and viola! The cashflow appears.

Should a retired entrepreneur re-enter the business world? We will discuss this topic another day. Like good old Arnie, I would love to hold my favourite cigar in my hand and have the opportunity to tell my competitors ... I'll be back.

ON YOUR OWN By TAN THIAM HOCK

l To access earlier articles of On Your Own, log on to www.thiamhock.com. Honest comments welcomed and approved.  


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