Characteristics of a Unique First World Country:
90% of donations kept or used by organisation, only 10% for the needy.
80% of people live in govt housing, only 20% live in private housing.
70% of jobs go to foreigners, only 30% go to citizens.
60% of investments go to foreigners, only 40% go to citizens.
50% of business opportunities go to govt, only 50% left for citizens.
40% of busaries, grants and scholarships go to foreigners, only 60% for citizens.
30% of welfare services come from govt, 70% from the people themselves.
20% of people are in the higher income group, while 80% are middle or lower income people.
10% get all the rewards, while 90% are not proportionately rewarded.
http://www.youngpap.org.sg/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=167728#167728
Source: YoungPAP Forum.
By User: We Sue Men
Say No to GST Hike
http://www.gsthike.com
http://www.petitiononline.com/GST7/petition.html
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Monday, December 25, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Channel-X Episode 2 Part 1
Conspiracy theories unveiled!
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Channel-X Part 1
This is a cool video done by Channel-X. Cool stuff. Make sure you finish viewing everything. Part 2 & Part 3 coming.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Friday, December 22, 2006
Where Are The Heroes?
When I was young, I remember that I enjoyed watching Mask Riders and Ultraman. I knew that even when the good guys came up with set-backs, justice will eventually prevail. Everybody wants to be the good guy, which explains why the departmental stores always stock up more figurines of the good characters. Just for the record, though the department stores stock up the figurines of evil characters, they are mainly used as frustration objects so that you would get a high from trouncing the evil villains. The feeling is just so wonderful.
Fast forward four to five years later, things take a drastic change. It's the 'O' Levels and things began to take a spin. Everybody is frantic about making a drastic attempt in making sure they excel in their results. To them, if they do badly, they're condemned. There are no more fairy tales. Live was real. It's almost life and death. To each it's own. Everybody can't care less for others. Everybody wanted to get a better head start than the others. This is the real time when we unknowingly start our selfish journey.
Many people begin to work hard for their personal goals. Many people begin to see the uglier side of life. Many people begin to realize that it's not what you know but who you know. You don't need to be the best or smartest? You just needed to have the right connections. That is where souls are lost. In order to achieve goals, many have inadvertently sold their conscience and their souls.
We see many of those instances in our daily lives. Even the worst critic can be eventually bought over by promises of wealth and power. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. Politicians, businessmen, government servants, anybody you can think of starts betraying their conscience in pursuit of favours, career advancement and money.
One would rather squash their conscience than to admit what they do is wrong. Haven't they read history? Haven't they read the downfalls of empires in history? No empire lasts for a lifetime. No man is a saint. One thing for sure, nothing is certain in life.
"Change is the only constant thing in this world."
A lot of people have told me this before. There is no way things are going to change. Don't day dream. It's not going to happen. Let me tell you one thing. I don't just day dream, I dream at night as well. "In fact, I dream of so many things that my political opponents have nightmares over it."
Ask yourself this question. Are you going to wait for things to happen or are you going to make things happen?
What are we? Who do we think we are? Do you look down on yourself? I know I don't. All I know is that if I think I'm a failure, I would be one. If I thought I am destined for mediocrity I wouldn't have worked hard and achieved my level of success. Despite my handicap in education, I was able to make it up with my Passion, Hardwork and Drive. Why am I here? "I am but a catalyst and a messenger to inspire your awakening."
Did you watch Part 3 of the Lord Of The Rings? Did you watch the part where the hobbit lit up the first of many torches at the top of the hill? There are many that are anticipating and waiting just for the right time. The time is now. All we need is to light up the beacon and there are many others who will join the fight.
It is unfortunate that there are more highly educated individuals who are afraid of taking the first step. Why is it that they fear? Fear is a bigger disease than fear itself.
Look not for your hero but look at the mirror. You are the hero that you're looking for.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Fast forward four to five years later, things take a drastic change. It's the 'O' Levels and things began to take a spin. Everybody is frantic about making a drastic attempt in making sure they excel in their results. To them, if they do badly, they're condemned. There are no more fairy tales. Live was real. It's almost life and death. To each it's own. Everybody can't care less for others. Everybody wanted to get a better head start than the others. This is the real time when we unknowingly start our selfish journey.
Many people begin to work hard for their personal goals. Many people begin to see the uglier side of life. Many people begin to realize that it's not what you know but who you know. You don't need to be the best or smartest? You just needed to have the right connections. That is where souls are lost. In order to achieve goals, many have inadvertently sold their conscience and their souls.
We see many of those instances in our daily lives. Even the worst critic can be eventually bought over by promises of wealth and power. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. Politicians, businessmen, government servants, anybody you can think of starts betraying their conscience in pursuit of favours, career advancement and money.
One would rather squash their conscience than to admit what they do is wrong. Haven't they read history? Haven't they read the downfalls of empires in history? No empire lasts for a lifetime. No man is a saint. One thing for sure, nothing is certain in life.
"Change is the only constant thing in this world."
A lot of people have told me this before. There is no way things are going to change. Don't day dream. It's not going to happen. Let me tell you one thing. I don't just day dream, I dream at night as well. "In fact, I dream of so many things that my political opponents have nightmares over it."
Ask yourself this question. Are you going to wait for things to happen or are you going to make things happen?
What are we? Who do we think we are? Do you look down on yourself? I know I don't. All I know is that if I think I'm a failure, I would be one. If I thought I am destined for mediocrity I wouldn't have worked hard and achieved my level of success. Despite my handicap in education, I was able to make it up with my Passion, Hardwork and Drive. Why am I here? "I am but a catalyst and a messenger to inspire your awakening."
Did you watch Part 3 of the Lord Of The Rings? Did you watch the part where the hobbit lit up the first of many torches at the top of the hill? There are many that are anticipating and waiting just for the right time. The time is now. All we need is to light up the beacon and there are many others who will join the fight.
It is unfortunate that there are more highly educated individuals who are afraid of taking the first step. Why is it that they fear? Fear is a bigger disease than fear itself.
Look not for your hero but look at the mirror. You are the hero that you're looking for.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Seasons Greetings
The National Solidarity Party wishes everyone a merry Christmas, pleasant Hari Raya Haji, and joyous New Year.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Strongest Dad In The World
[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.
Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back Mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes Taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick Was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him Brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him And his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an Institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was Anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''
"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed Him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his Head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want To do that.''
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran More than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he Tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore For two weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''
And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly Shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a Single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few Years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then They found a way to get into the race Officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the Qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''
How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he Was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick Tried.
Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you Think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with A cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best Time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world Record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to Be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the Time.
``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a Mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries Was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''
And the video is below....
In case you haven't had a goal in life. I hope this inspires you to have one.
Edmund Ng
"We Must Be The Change We Want To See In The World".
- Mahatma Gandhi
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.
Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back Mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes Taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick Was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him Brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him And his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an Institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was Anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''
"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed Him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his Head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want To do that.''
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran More than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he Tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore For two weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''
And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly Shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a Single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few Years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then They found a way to get into the race Officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the Qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''
How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he Was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick Tried.
Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you Think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with A cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best Time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world Record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to Be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the Time.
``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a Mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries Was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''
And the video is below....
In case you haven't had a goal in life. I hope this inspires you to have one.
Edmund Ng
"We Must Be The Change We Want To See In The World".
- Mahatma Gandhi
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Internet-Empire.com launches Free Internet Marketing Training for the Physically Challenged.
http://www.internet-empire.com/free-internet-marketing-seminar.htm
Internet-Empire.com launches pilot Free Internet Marketing Training with the Handicaps Welfare Association. We will be conducting a 2 day work shop for HWA members. The first series of Free Internet Marketing Workshops will be launched on 8th & 9th Jan 2007 at the HWA premise.
If you are associated with the HWA and would like to take sign up for the free internet marketing seminar, you could contact Gladys Tang from HWA at 6254-3006.
Address of Handicaps Welfare Association - 16, 18 Whampoa Drive. (Off Balestier)
My goal is to provide free Internet Marketing training for all who are physically challenged in Singapore. I sincerly believe that Internet Marketing would be able to help them lead a self-sufficient, meaningful and dignified life. Should you have any friends that are from charitable organizations who might be interested to let me train their members, do feel free to contact me at the following address.
Email: seminar@internet-empire.com
+65 9782-2682
As our tagline says "Creating A New World", we walk the talk.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Internet-Empire.com launches pilot Free Internet Marketing Training with the Handicaps Welfare Association. We will be conducting a 2 day work shop for HWA members. The first series of Free Internet Marketing Workshops will be launched on 8th & 9th Jan 2007 at the HWA premise.
If you are associated with the HWA and would like to take sign up for the free internet marketing seminar, you could contact Gladys Tang from HWA at 6254-3006.
Address of Handicaps Welfare Association - 16, 18 Whampoa Drive. (Off Balestier)
My goal is to provide free Internet Marketing training for all who are physically challenged in Singapore. I sincerly believe that Internet Marketing would be able to help them lead a self-sufficient, meaningful and dignified life. Should you have any friends that are from charitable organizations who might be interested to let me train their members, do feel free to contact me at the following address.
Email: seminar@internet-empire.com
+65 9782-2682
As our tagline says "Creating A New World", we walk the talk.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
The No.1 Internet Marketing Seminar
See the testimonials
http://www.internet-empire.com/testimonials.htm
Would you like to get your website ranked No.1 and make considerable amounts of passive income in the process? There is a lot of hype done by many Internet Marketers but many have failed to live up to their expectations despite charging exorbitant fees. That is the main reason why my program comes with 1,000% Money Back Guarantee. Just don’t believe what I have to tell you literally and looked at the website for yourself.
These are real testimonials from real participants from my 1st December Internet Marketing Seminar. Just for the record, I managed to get 112 keywords ranked No.1 and No.2 in less than 3 months. Just click the link below and look at the testimonials. Don’t worry if you have no IT experience. I have a lot of people without IT background attending the seminar and coping just fine. My oldest seminar attendee is 74 years old.
------------------------------------------
http://www.internet-empire.com
------------------------------------------
The Singapore Government is going to make Singapore a Wireless Hub. Beginning on Jan 2007, there will be more than 20,000 hot spots catering to free wireless access for the next two years. Why do you think they’re doing that? The internet is really booming and making a lot of people rich. Would you want to have a piece of all that? What if there are ways and means that can help you achieve top rankings in search engines with minimal effort?
Internet Marketing Seminar organized by Internet-Empire.com is targeted at helping you get started with a breeze.
For more information please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com
Internet Marketing Seminar (The World’s Only Internet Marketing Seminar That Offer’s 1,000% Money Back Guarantee)
(Comes With 6 Months Post Seminar Support – To Make Sure You Succeed)
Participants will also receive high quality Step-By-Step DVD Videos to make sure you can do it.
"The Most Comprehensive Internet Marketing Training Program Ever To Be Launched On The Internet."
29 Step By Step DVD Videos!!!
Basic
Video 1 - Basic Introduction of Internet Terminologies / File Structure / Folder Structure / Naming Convention (+ Internet Security Softwares)
Video 2 - Identifying niche markets / Keyword Analysis / Competitor Analysis / How to target the ideal keyword (low-lying fruit)
Video 3 - Purchasing Domains / Hosting
Video 4 - FTP Software / How to do FTP / Understanding Root Folder
Video 5 - Installing Forum / WordPress
Video 6 - How to create / Edit Website in 5 minutes or less
Video 7 - Creating Metatags / Title / Description
Video 8 - Page Rank / Alexa Ranking Explained / Addiing Alexa Toolbar
Intermediate
Video 9 - Article Marketing / Submission
Video 10 - Making your articles rank top of search engines.
Video 11 - Creating content / How to add 10 web-pages of content in less than 5 minutes and build a content rich website.
Video 12 - How to create article directory
Video 13 - Forum Marketing
Video 14 - How to configure Opt In List / Auto Responder
Video 15 - How to do effective copywriting
Video 16 - Creating Link Structure / Link Directory
Video 17 - How not to get banned by Google and other search engines
Video 18 - How to do link exchange with no risk
Video 19 - Configuration of payment gateways like Paypal / 2CO
Advance Internet Marketing Strategies
Video 20 - Get multiple keywords ranked No.1 in Google / MSN / Yahoo
Video 21 - Advanced SEO Strategies
Video 22 - Advanced / Accelerated Linking Strategies
Video 23 - How to make your website complex and sticky
Video 24 - Automate your business and make money while you sleep
Video 25 - Bonus Website Templates / Editing Images / Free Webmaster Resources
Video 26 - How to be successful in affiliate marketing
Video 27 - How to publish Audio + Free Audio Software - New!!!
SPECIAL Bonuses
Resell rights of Seminar and DVDs - New!!!
(Special 8 Hour - Seminar Recording - DVD) New!!!
Video 28 - Yahoo Groups Marketing - New!!!
Video 29 - Safelist Marketing - New!!!
Who Should Attend?
Website Owners / Webmasters
Entrepreneurs
Business Owners
Retrenched or Jobless
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
http://www.internet-empire.com/testimonials.htm
Would you like to get your website ranked No.1 and make considerable amounts of passive income in the process? There is a lot of hype done by many Internet Marketers but many have failed to live up to their expectations despite charging exorbitant fees. That is the main reason why my program comes with 1,000% Money Back Guarantee. Just don’t believe what I have to tell you literally and looked at the website for yourself.
These are real testimonials from real participants from my 1st December Internet Marketing Seminar. Just for the record, I managed to get 112 keywords ranked No.1 and No.2 in less than 3 months. Just click the link below and look at the testimonials. Don’t worry if you have no IT experience. I have a lot of people without IT background attending the seminar and coping just fine. My oldest seminar attendee is 74 years old.
------------------------------------------
http://www.internet-empire.com
------------------------------------------
The Singapore Government is going to make Singapore a Wireless Hub. Beginning on Jan 2007, there will be more than 20,000 hot spots catering to free wireless access for the next two years. Why do you think they’re doing that? The internet is really booming and making a lot of people rich. Would you want to have a piece of all that? What if there are ways and means that can help you achieve top rankings in search engines with minimal effort?
Internet Marketing Seminar organized by Internet-Empire.com is targeted at helping you get started with a breeze.
For more information please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com
Internet Marketing Seminar (The World’s Only Internet Marketing Seminar That Offer’s 1,000% Money Back Guarantee)
(Comes With 6 Months Post Seminar Support – To Make Sure You Succeed)
Participants will also receive high quality Step-By-Step DVD Videos to make sure you can do it.
"The Most Comprehensive Internet Marketing Training Program Ever To Be Launched On The Internet."
29 Step By Step DVD Videos!!!
Basic
Video 1 - Basic Introduction of Internet Terminologies / File Structure / Folder Structure / Naming Convention (+ Internet Security Softwares)
Video 2 - Identifying niche markets / Keyword Analysis / Competitor Analysis / How to target the ideal keyword (low-lying fruit)
Video 3 - Purchasing Domains / Hosting
Video 4 - FTP Software / How to do FTP / Understanding Root Folder
Video 5 - Installing Forum / WordPress
Video 6 - How to create / Edit Website in 5 minutes or less
Video 7 - Creating Metatags / Title / Description
Video 8 - Page Rank / Alexa Ranking Explained / Addiing Alexa Toolbar
Intermediate
Video 9 - Article Marketing / Submission
Video 10 - Making your articles rank top of search engines.
Video 11 - Creating content / How to add 10 web-pages of content in less than 5 minutes and build a content rich website.
Video 12 - How to create article directory
Video 13 - Forum Marketing
Video 14 - How to configure Opt In List / Auto Responder
Video 15 - How to do effective copywriting
Video 16 - Creating Link Structure / Link Directory
Video 17 - How not to get banned by Google and other search engines
Video 18 - How to do link exchange with no risk
Video 19 - Configuration of payment gateways like Paypal / 2CO
Advance Internet Marketing Strategies
Video 20 - Get multiple keywords ranked No.1 in Google / MSN / Yahoo
Video 21 - Advanced SEO Strategies
Video 22 - Advanced / Accelerated Linking Strategies
Video 23 - How to make your website complex and sticky
Video 24 - Automate your business and make money while you sleep
Video 25 - Bonus Website Templates / Editing Images / Free Webmaster Resources
Video 26 - How to be successful in affiliate marketing
Video 27 - How to publish Audio + Free Audio Software - New!!!
SPECIAL Bonuses
Resell rights of Seminar and DVDs - New!!!
(Special 8 Hour - Seminar Recording - DVD) New!!!
Video 28 - Yahoo Groups Marketing - New!!!
Video 29 - Safelist Marketing - New!!!
Who Should Attend?
Website Owners / Webmasters
Entrepreneurs
Business Owners
Retrenched or Jobless
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Back to the Future...Oil Money for the Obedient
The United States of America Has Gone Mad -- by John le Carré
-------------------------------------------------------------
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams.
As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.
The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world's poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN
resolutions.
But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88% of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy.
Quite what war 88% of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer's pocket? At what cost - because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people - in Iraqi lives?
How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear.
The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election. Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall - just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America.
God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is
a) anti-Semitic,
b) anti-American
c) with the enemy, and
d) a terrorist.
God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another's, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas. Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God's work.
In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that "somebody" was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr's cry: "That man tried to kill my Daddy." But it's still not personal, this war. It's still necessary. It's still God's work. It's still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.
To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won't tell us is the truth about why we're going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil - but oil, money and people's lives.
Saddam's misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn't, won't. If Saddam didn't have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart's content. Other leaders do it every day - think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.
Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, if he's still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes' notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America's need to demonstrate its military power to all of us - to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.
The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair's part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can't. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can't get out. It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain's opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that's Britain's tragedy, as it is America's: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.
Blair's best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world's greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant's head to wave at the boys?
Blair's worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come.
He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.
There is a middle way, but it's a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship. I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect's sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can't explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq.
We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.
"But will we win, Daddy?"
"Of course, child. It will all be over while you're still in bed."
"Why?"
"Because otherwise Mr Bush's voters will get terribly impatient and may
decide not to vote for him."
"But will people be killed, Daddy?"
"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."
"Can I watch it on television?"
"Only if Mr Bush says you can."
"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything
horrid any more?"
"Hush child, and go to sleep."
Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he'd finished shopping.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
-------------------------------------------------------------
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams.
As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.
The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world's poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN
resolutions.
But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88% of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy.
Quite what war 88% of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer's pocket? At what cost - because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people - in Iraqi lives?
How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear.
The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election. Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall - just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America.
God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is
a) anti-Semitic,
b) anti-American
c) with the enemy, and
d) a terrorist.
God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another's, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas. Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God's work.
In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that "somebody" was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr's cry: "That man tried to kill my Daddy." But it's still not personal, this war. It's still necessary. It's still God's work. It's still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.
To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won't tell us is the truth about why we're going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil - but oil, money and people's lives.
Saddam's misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn't, won't. If Saddam didn't have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart's content. Other leaders do it every day - think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.
Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, if he's still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes' notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America's need to demonstrate its military power to all of us - to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.
The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair's part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can't. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can't get out. It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain's opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that's Britain's tragedy, as it is America's: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.
Blair's best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world's greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant's head to wave at the boys?
Blair's worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come.
He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.
There is a middle way, but it's a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship. I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect's sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can't explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq.
We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.
"But will we win, Daddy?"
"Of course, child. It will all be over while you're still in bed."
"Why?"
"Because otherwise Mr Bush's voters will get terribly impatient and may
decide not to vote for him."
"But will people be killed, Daddy?"
"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."
"Can I watch it on television?"
"Only if Mr Bush says you can."
"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything
horrid any more?"
"Hush child, and go to sleep."
Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he'd finished shopping.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
WE LIVE IN SINGAPURA the MTV version
This is an extremely funny MTV for a song sang by Hosanne Leong.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Surayud says PM's Office must reach best way-out with iTV
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said Friday that the PM's Office must find a best way-out for the controversy regarding huge fine and concession fees of iTV.
Surayud said it would not be enough for the permanent secretary of the PM's Office to only report the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling on iTV for the Cabinet to consider.
Instead, the PM's Office permanent secretary must consider the pros and cons of all possible choices regarding the dispute and propose them for the Cabinet to consider.
He said the iTV has to maintain its news to entertainment programme ratio as 70 to 30 per cent and the rest of the disputes could be negotiated.
"The best way to handle this is to hold negotiations for a suitable point in line with the self-sufficiency economy philosophy," Surayud said.
The Nation
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Surayud said it would not be enough for the permanent secretary of the PM's Office to only report the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling on iTV for the Cabinet to consider.
Instead, the PM's Office permanent secretary must consider the pros and cons of all possible choices regarding the dispute and propose them for the Cabinet to consider.
He said the iTV has to maintain its news to entertainment programme ratio as 70 to 30 per cent and the rest of the disputes could be negotiated.
"The best way to handle this is to hold negotiations for a suitable point in line with the self-sufficiency economy philosophy," Surayud said.
The Nation
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Shin Corp may sell iTV's shares: iTV chairman
iTV executive chairman Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan indicated Friday that the Shin Corp board of directors might decide to sell its stakes in the television station.
Niwatthamrong said he had learnt that members of the Shin Corp boards wanted the station to be maintained and Shin Corp does not have to go on holding stakes in iTV.
He said that iTV organisation, which had been firmly built up would have to collapse.
"I would be very happy if anyone can help the station to go on operating," the iTV chairman said.
The Nation
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Niwatthamrong said he had learnt that members of the Shin Corp boards wanted the station to be maintained and Shin Corp does not have to go on holding stakes in iTV.
He said that iTV organisation, which had been firmly built up would have to collapse.
"I would be very happy if anyone can help the station to go on operating," the iTV chairman said.
The Nation
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Reuters: PAP out of touch in SG!
Monday December 18, 3:04 PM Reuters
Income gap tears at Singapore social fabric
By Geert De Clercq
SINGAPORE, Dec 18 (Reuters) - When Wee Shu Min, the teenage daughter of a Singapore member of parliament stumbled across the blog of a Singaporean who wrote that he was worried about losing his job, she thought she'd give him a piece of her mind.
She called him "one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country" on her own blog and signed off with "please, get out of my elite uncaring face".
Wee was flamed by hundreds of fellow bloggers, but when her father Wee Siew Kim -- an MP in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's constituency -- told a Singapore newspaper that "her basic point is reasonable", the row moved well beyond the blogosphere.
The episode highlighted a deep rift in Singapore society and was an embarrassment for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and prime minister Lee, who has made the reduction of the income gap one of the priorities of his new government.
"Coming from an MP in the prime minister's constituency, these comments really were political dynamite," political commentator Seah Chiang Nee told Reuters.
"If the political arrogance and elitism get any worse, the PAP will lose more electoral ground," he added.
Singapore is Asia's second-richest country after Japan with a gross domestic product per capita of about $27,000, ranking between EU member Italy and Spain. But in terms of income disparity, Singapore is in altogether different company.
Singapore's Gini index -- which measures inequality of income distribution among households -- of 42.5 puts it between Burundi and Kenya, the UN Human Development Report 2006 shows.
"Yes, the gini coefficient is very high. Through housing, health care and education, we have tried to narrow the income gap, but not through wages," National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan told Reuters in an interview last month.
"WELFARE AS A DIRTY WORD"
Singapore pays no employment benefits, no pensions and has no legal minimum wage, but education is cheap and excellent, health care is subsidised and the government gives subsidies to first-time buyers of government-built flats.
Last month, Singapore's first parliament session since the May 6 poll was dominated by the inequality theme.
PM Lee ruled out the introduction of old-age pensions, a minimum wage or European-style welfare.
"We have treated welfare as a dirty word. The opposition, I think the Workers' Party, has called for a 'permanent unconditional needs-based welfare system'. I think that is an even dirtier five words," he said in a speech on Nov. 13.
But he acknowledged that since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the income gap had widened, and said that his government plans to "tilt the balance in favour of the lower-income groups".
While Lee's ruling PAP is in no danger of losing its stranglehold on parliament -- where it has 82 out of 84 elected seats -- the growing income disparity has hurt its credibility.
In the May 6 poll, the Workers' Party scored its best result in years, with chairwoman Sylvia Lim winning 44 percent of the votes in a multi-seat ward. Lee lost 34 percent in his ward to a group of unknown candidates in their early thirties.
"They (the PAP) are concerned about the fallout if they don't do anything about the income gap," Lim, who entered parliament as a non-voting MP under a best-loser provision, told Reuters.
In parliament, Lee said he plans to improve healthcare and boost housing subsidies for low-income families. He added that he wants more "workfare" schemes, under which the state tops up low-income workers' pay.
On May 1 -- five days before the election -- the government paid out S$150 million to about 330,000 low-income workers, and Lee promised a similar package for next year. Details would be released in the 2007 budget on February 15.
"MARIE ANTOINETTES"
Critics say that much of the outrage about the teenage blogger's comments is due to a perception that Singapore is ruled by a privileged elite that's out of touch with the people.
The road to a top job in the Singapore government or civil service leads through elite junior colleges and prestigious government scholarships for university studies abroad.
While access to these schools and scholarships is open to all and based on academic grades, critics say the children of the elite are well represented. Wee Shu Min attends a top school, Raffles Junior College, as did her father, an MP and a top executive at state-owned arms maker ST Engineering.
In a report about "elite envy", the Straits Times daily quoted official data showing that in the last five years, one in three students on government scholarships came from families with incomes of more than $$10,000 ($6,500) a month, while such families make up just 13 per cent of all Singapore households.
Students from households on incomes of less than $2,000 made up only 7 per cent of scholarship winners, the paper added.
Colin Goh, founder of satirical website TalkingCock.com, said that while the first generation of post-independence PAP leaders was seen as close to the people, this is no longer the case.
"The source for much invective in the Wee Shu Min case is that there is a real sense the PAP is composed of people in ivory towers; that they are a bunch of Marie Antoinettes," he said.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Income gap tears at Singapore social fabric
By Geert De Clercq
SINGAPORE, Dec 18 (Reuters) - When Wee Shu Min, the teenage daughter of a Singapore member of parliament stumbled across the blog of a Singaporean who wrote that he was worried about losing his job, she thought she'd give him a piece of her mind.
She called him "one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country" on her own blog and signed off with "please, get out of my elite uncaring face".
Wee was flamed by hundreds of fellow bloggers, but when her father Wee Siew Kim -- an MP in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's constituency -- told a Singapore newspaper that "her basic point is reasonable", the row moved well beyond the blogosphere.
The episode highlighted a deep rift in Singapore society and was an embarrassment for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and prime minister Lee, who has made the reduction of the income gap one of the priorities of his new government.
"Coming from an MP in the prime minister's constituency, these comments really were political dynamite," political commentator Seah Chiang Nee told Reuters.
"If the political arrogance and elitism get any worse, the PAP will lose more electoral ground," he added.
Singapore is Asia's second-richest country after Japan with a gross domestic product per capita of about $27,000, ranking between EU member Italy and Spain. But in terms of income disparity, Singapore is in altogether different company.
Singapore's Gini index -- which measures inequality of income distribution among households -- of 42.5 puts it between Burundi and Kenya, the UN Human Development Report 2006 shows.
"Yes, the gini coefficient is very high. Through housing, health care and education, we have tried to narrow the income gap, but not through wages," National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan told Reuters in an interview last month.
"WELFARE AS A DIRTY WORD"
Singapore pays no employment benefits, no pensions and has no legal minimum wage, but education is cheap and excellent, health care is subsidised and the government gives subsidies to first-time buyers of government-built flats.
Last month, Singapore's first parliament session since the May 6 poll was dominated by the inequality theme.
PM Lee ruled out the introduction of old-age pensions, a minimum wage or European-style welfare.
"We have treated welfare as a dirty word. The opposition, I think the Workers' Party, has called for a 'permanent unconditional needs-based welfare system'. I think that is an even dirtier five words," he said in a speech on Nov. 13.
But he acknowledged that since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the income gap had widened, and said that his government plans to "tilt the balance in favour of the lower-income groups".
While Lee's ruling PAP is in no danger of losing its stranglehold on parliament -- where it has 82 out of 84 elected seats -- the growing income disparity has hurt its credibility.
In the May 6 poll, the Workers' Party scored its best result in years, with chairwoman Sylvia Lim winning 44 percent of the votes in a multi-seat ward. Lee lost 34 percent in his ward to a group of unknown candidates in their early thirties.
"They (the PAP) are concerned about the fallout if they don't do anything about the income gap," Lim, who entered parliament as a non-voting MP under a best-loser provision, told Reuters.
In parliament, Lee said he plans to improve healthcare and boost housing subsidies for low-income families. He added that he wants more "workfare" schemes, under which the state tops up low-income workers' pay.
On May 1 -- five days before the election -- the government paid out S$150 million to about 330,000 low-income workers, and Lee promised a similar package for next year. Details would be released in the 2007 budget on February 15.
"MARIE ANTOINETTES"
Critics say that much of the outrage about the teenage blogger's comments is due to a perception that Singapore is ruled by a privileged elite that's out of touch with the people.
The road to a top job in the Singapore government or civil service leads through elite junior colleges and prestigious government scholarships for university studies abroad.
While access to these schools and scholarships is open to all and based on academic grades, critics say the children of the elite are well represented. Wee Shu Min attends a top school, Raffles Junior College, as did her father, an MP and a top executive at state-owned arms maker ST Engineering.
In a report about "elite envy", the Straits Times daily quoted official data showing that in the last five years, one in three students on government scholarships came from families with incomes of more than $$10,000 ($6,500) a month, while such families make up just 13 per cent of all Singapore households.
Students from households on incomes of less than $2,000 made up only 7 per cent of scholarship winners, the paper added.
Colin Goh, founder of satirical website TalkingCock.com, said that while the first generation of post-independence PAP leaders was seen as close to the people, this is no longer the case.
"The source for much invective in the Wee Shu Min case is that there is a real sense the PAP is composed of people in ivory towers; that they are a bunch of Marie Antoinettes," he said.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Charity tells why CEO gets salary of only $7,100
If Dr. Lee is really inclined to helping the less fortunate, he should not be drawing such a high pay when there are volunteers who are not even paid a single cent for their involvement in charitable events. Is he working on a full time basis?
Dec 13, 2006
Charity tells why CEO gets salary of only $7,100
I THANK Mr Wang Tiancheng for his letter, 'Bar charity staff related to boss from high posts' (ST, Dec 9).
Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society (THKMS) CEO Dr Lee Ngak Siang's total pay is $7,100 per month - $2,100 from the Moral Home for Disabled and $5,000 from the Moral Home Help Service - West. He is not paid for any other positions or by any of our other agencies.
If Dr Lee's monthly salary appears low for an organisation like THKMS, it is because we made it a point that a senior position like that of CEO should not be paid a high salary. We want the CEO to treat his job partly as a volunteer and therefore his pay should be low.
Among our 10 policies on the recruitment of a CEO are the following:
The CEO must have good experience in grassroots work and preferably have experience in managing grassroots or VWO agencies.
He must be able to work as a team and abide by three prohibitions - no name, no gain and no fame.
He must be dedicated to serve the poor, disabled, aged and the needy.
He will approve expenses put up by the service agencies but shall not have the power to sign cheques.
We have put in place procedures to avoid conflict of interest or to resolve potential conflict situations. Good governance is the key.
As far as possible, THKMS and the Society of Moral Charities (SOMC) base their governance and management policies on National Council of Social Service guidelines and other government requirements.
Our CEO manages the day-to-day activities of THKMS and SOMC. Matters of policy and finance are decided by the Exco. Dr Lee is not a member of the Exco or management committee of both organisations.
Should there be any potential conflict (so far there has been none), our policy has been for the person involved to abstain from discussing the issues and also to abstain from voting on the issues.
Where recruitment of people with close relationship to committee members is concerned, the board member, staff or volunteer is to make a declaration of such relationships, and refrain from influencing the decision. Such a person shall not vote on any decision.
Additionally, paid staff, including the executive head and senior staff employed by the two societies, are not allowed to serve on the management committee.
Lee Kim Siang
Chairman
Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society and Society of Moral Charities
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Dec 13, 2006
Charity tells why CEO gets salary of only $7,100
I THANK Mr Wang Tiancheng for his letter, 'Bar charity staff related to boss from high posts' (ST, Dec 9).
Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society (THKMS) CEO Dr Lee Ngak Siang's total pay is $7,100 per month - $2,100 from the Moral Home for Disabled and $5,000 from the Moral Home Help Service - West. He is not paid for any other positions or by any of our other agencies.
If Dr Lee's monthly salary appears low for an organisation like THKMS, it is because we made it a point that a senior position like that of CEO should not be paid a high salary. We want the CEO to treat his job partly as a volunteer and therefore his pay should be low.
Among our 10 policies on the recruitment of a CEO are the following:
The CEO must have good experience in grassroots work and preferably have experience in managing grassroots or VWO agencies.
He must be able to work as a team and abide by three prohibitions - no name, no gain and no fame.
He must be dedicated to serve the poor, disabled, aged and the needy.
He will approve expenses put up by the service agencies but shall not have the power to sign cheques.
We have put in place procedures to avoid conflict of interest or to resolve potential conflict situations. Good governance is the key.
As far as possible, THKMS and the Society of Moral Charities (SOMC) base their governance and management policies on National Council of Social Service guidelines and other government requirements.
Our CEO manages the day-to-day activities of THKMS and SOMC. Matters of policy and finance are decided by the Exco. Dr Lee is not a member of the Exco or management committee of both organisations.
Should there be any potential conflict (so far there has been none), our policy has been for the person involved to abstain from discussing the issues and also to abstain from voting on the issues.
Where recruitment of people with close relationship to committee members is concerned, the board member, staff or volunteer is to make a declaration of such relationships, and refrain from influencing the decision. Such a person shall not vote on any decision.
Additionally, paid staff, including the executive head and senior staff employed by the two societies, are not allowed to serve on the management committee.
Lee Kim Siang
Chairman
Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society and Society of Moral Charities
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
The Singapore Monarch - Regal Treatment For White Prince
Source from: SammyBoy Alfresco Coffeeeshop
In the army, we'll love them white horse kings...
Don't we all love to hear more white horse stories? Especially when the horse is 'super-white'.
Found this on a blog, written several months ago. I can't vouch for its authenticity, obviously. And the date's wrong if he was referring to this year, for 7th July fell on a Friday. The vocation (Signals) was right though.
On the 7th of July, a thursday, we, sergeants-to-be and future commanders in the SAF, did saikang. We shifted huge steel lockers, tables, cleaned windows and bed frames, arranged chairs in the "entertainment room", swept the floors and took out the trash. All this on the Officer-Cadet-Trainee(OCT) floor. And not just for the OCTs, who are of the same age as us by the way, but for a particular OCT who was going over to Signals the next day. An OCT with a...particularly powerful father. I don't think i need to mention his name, do i?
It wasn't just the sergeants-to-be who had to do all this work. Every operator had to do their part, and there were warrant officers, people who've spent over 20 years as commanders in the Army, shifting beds around and going around unscrewing our locker door handles 'cos the OCTs did not have enough of them. Unscrewing door handles. An officer doing construction-worker-style stuff for no bonus pay. We even had to make sure the OCT's lockers had enough hooks to place their precious jockey-caps and berets...when almost all the beds in OUR own bunks have no hooks at all. (Not to mention the fact that our big mirror has been taken away...as well as our own bloody toilet door!!!)
It wasn't just yesterday. Word of the young prince's imminent arrival had spread over a month ago, and renovation work had begun since then. The particular floor was given a new coat of paint, mosquito nets were installed in the OCTs' bunks and new rust-free fans were installed. 10 fans to a room. In contrast, the sergeants and operators have 4 fans to a room, all rusty. And no way to block out insects that often fly in.
What makes me so pissed is that this normally wouldn't have been done for officers-to-be at all. Only for THIS particular batch for you-know-what-reason. As a senior officer whispered to us, normally there wouldn't any renovation at all, and no effort to wipe out the rat population before the OCTs arrived. Our OC apologised to us, as making sergeants-to-be do saikang wasn't his directive (although his sergeant probably couldn't refuse the officer who had sent him off to find man-power). "You know how it is", our OC told us. After all, what if that OCT had complained to his dad during dinner that the bunk conditions were horrible? Yes, what if?
Everybody i've talked to don't like what's happening, don't like this obvious show of favouritism and pulling strings, but most of them, including senior officers, also believe that there isn't really much choice. "Bo bian mah, he's his father's son after all." This's what disgusts me the most. WHY should it be "bo bian"?? Why should it be obvious to people that he should receive better treatment than the rest of us? Why are there so many people just craning their necks and taking all this crap simply because he obviously cannot be touched, that the world is unfair and "we have no choice"??
Is this something like our own Singaporean facination with our former colonial masters?? Is this favouritism for the supposedly more noble so inbred in our bones that we do it without thinking and even acknowledge it as a normal frame of mind?
It's really sad that you can be treated like a king simply for having the right parents. It's something like people getting treated better for HAVING lots of money, although they don't spend any more than the next guy. This particular OCT doesn't give SAF head honchos ANYTHING; he's just a normal 18 year old with normal grades like the rest of us (i don't know if he even plans to go into politics), but he still gets to have an easier life in BMT, OCS, and gets to go to an easy course in Signals and succeed in the army while doing less and having less hardships than everyone else. Simply because he has a father who MIGHT give the head honchos SOMETHING, however unlikely. It's not gonna help, you know...in the future he'd have a really myopic view on the hardships of NS life, which wouldn't be good for Singapore if he DID go into politics.
Other people have to sweat blood to get their officer rank. But he doesn't. And in the future, everyone except for those who were there when he was in NS would think he had gone through one of the toughest courses in NS. Whatever job he applies for, he'd be able to show off that rank to a lot of "Wow, he's such a talented person!" People will think that he had experienced hardship during his NS life. When he hadn't, actually. And that's really unfair.
I don't bear too much of a grudge to this particular OCT though, he probably doesn't have much of a choice except to accept the good treatment. His dad too; there's a good chance he doesn't even know what's going on. I definitely don't blame the poor warrant officers who had to make us do saikang as well. Rather, the blame lies with someone higher up, who just loves to lick other people's boots and get promoted.
But what can i say? As my friend says, the world is dark after all, and i'm just a corporal.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
In the army, we'll love them white horse kings...
Don't we all love to hear more white horse stories? Especially when the horse is 'super-white'.
Found this on a blog, written several months ago. I can't vouch for its authenticity, obviously. And the date's wrong if he was referring to this year, for 7th July fell on a Friday. The vocation (Signals) was right though.
On the 7th of July, a thursday, we, sergeants-to-be and future commanders in the SAF, did saikang. We shifted huge steel lockers, tables, cleaned windows and bed frames, arranged chairs in the "entertainment room", swept the floors and took out the trash. All this on the Officer-Cadet-Trainee(OCT) floor. And not just for the OCTs, who are of the same age as us by the way, but for a particular OCT who was going over to Signals the next day. An OCT with a...particularly powerful father. I don't think i need to mention his name, do i?
It wasn't just the sergeants-to-be who had to do all this work. Every operator had to do their part, and there were warrant officers, people who've spent over 20 years as commanders in the Army, shifting beds around and going around unscrewing our locker door handles 'cos the OCTs did not have enough of them. Unscrewing door handles. An officer doing construction-worker-style stuff for no bonus pay. We even had to make sure the OCT's lockers had enough hooks to place their precious jockey-caps and berets...when almost all the beds in OUR own bunks have no hooks at all. (Not to mention the fact that our big mirror has been taken away...as well as our own bloody toilet door!!!)
It wasn't just yesterday. Word of the young prince's imminent arrival had spread over a month ago, and renovation work had begun since then. The particular floor was given a new coat of paint, mosquito nets were installed in the OCTs' bunks and new rust-free fans were installed. 10 fans to a room. In contrast, the sergeants and operators have 4 fans to a room, all rusty. And no way to block out insects that often fly in.
What makes me so pissed is that this normally wouldn't have been done for officers-to-be at all. Only for THIS particular batch for you-know-what-reason. As a senior officer whispered to us, normally there wouldn't any renovation at all, and no effort to wipe out the rat population before the OCTs arrived. Our OC apologised to us, as making sergeants-to-be do saikang wasn't his directive (although his sergeant probably couldn't refuse the officer who had sent him off to find man-power). "You know how it is", our OC told us. After all, what if that OCT had complained to his dad during dinner that the bunk conditions were horrible? Yes, what if?
Everybody i've talked to don't like what's happening, don't like this obvious show of favouritism and pulling strings, but most of them, including senior officers, also believe that there isn't really much choice. "Bo bian mah, he's his father's son after all." This's what disgusts me the most. WHY should it be "bo bian"?? Why should it be obvious to people that he should receive better treatment than the rest of us? Why are there so many people just craning their necks and taking all this crap simply because he obviously cannot be touched, that the world is unfair and "we have no choice"??
Is this something like our own Singaporean facination with our former colonial masters?? Is this favouritism for the supposedly more noble so inbred in our bones that we do it without thinking and even acknowledge it as a normal frame of mind?
It's really sad that you can be treated like a king simply for having the right parents. It's something like people getting treated better for HAVING lots of money, although they don't spend any more than the next guy. This particular OCT doesn't give SAF head honchos ANYTHING; he's just a normal 18 year old with normal grades like the rest of us (i don't know if he even plans to go into politics), but he still gets to have an easier life in BMT, OCS, and gets to go to an easy course in Signals and succeed in the army while doing less and having less hardships than everyone else. Simply because he has a father who MIGHT give the head honchos SOMETHING, however unlikely. It's not gonna help, you know...in the future he'd have a really myopic view on the hardships of NS life, which wouldn't be good for Singapore if he DID go into politics.
Other people have to sweat blood to get their officer rank. But he doesn't. And in the future, everyone except for those who were there when he was in NS would think he had gone through one of the toughest courses in NS. Whatever job he applies for, he'd be able to show off that rank to a lot of "Wow, he's such a talented person!" People will think that he had experienced hardship during his NS life. When he hadn't, actually. And that's really unfair.
I don't bear too much of a grudge to this particular OCT though, he probably doesn't have much of a choice except to accept the good treatment. His dad too; there's a good chance he doesn't even know what's going on. I definitely don't blame the poor warrant officers who had to make us do saikang as well. Rather, the blame lies with someone higher up, who just loves to lick other people's boots and get promoted.
But what can i say? As my friend says, the world is dark after all, and i'm just a corporal.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Pay the iTV fine in 45 days - Thai PMO
PM's Office insists iTV must pay fine in 45 days
Bangkok Post
Attorney-general calls for talks on penalty
POST REPORTERS
The Prime Minister's Office, a contract partner with the iTV station, is determined to impose a 45-day deadline for iTV to pay the office its concession fee and fine amounting to 99.97 billion baht. ''At this stage, we must only abide by the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling and implement it quickly,'' said Chulayut Hiranyawasit, permanent secretary of the PM's Office, at a press conference in response to the Wednesday verdict by the Supreme Administrative Court.
Mr Chulayut said payment must be made within 45 days, but noted that the office is willing to extend the deadline by another 45 days if iTV is unable to pay.
He said his office submitted the dispute on the calculation method of annual fee and fine to the Office of the Attorney-General shortly after the ruling in May by the Central Administrative Court.
At the same time, he said the cabinet will consider the fate of iTV on Tuesday.
The Office of the Attoney-General yesterday gave some hope to iTV by saying it has the right to appeal and the dispute will be ruled upon by an arbitration panel.
Attorney-General Pachara Yutidhammadamrong said the contract between the PM's Office and iTV requires disputes over fees and penalties to be settled by an arbitration committee.
The PM's Office puts the penalties as of May this year at about 94 billion baht while the station argues it should not exceed 300 million baht, saying the PM's Office calculation, which relies on a news/entertainment programme ratio agreement on a daily basis was unacceptable.
But Mr Pachara said that if after 45 days of negotiation in the arbitration stage no solution could be reached, his agency would seek the court to declare iTV bankrupt. ''The pressing issue is that both parties must find a solution soon. If they fail, the station is likely to be restored as a state asset,'' he said.
Deputy Attorney-General Poramet Intarachumnum said a new arbitration panel will be set up to rule on the case if the station objects to the PM's Office's demand. He said Thongchai Prasatvanich, director-general for conflict resolution and arbitration, is examining the PM's Office document before taking the next step.
He urged both parties to negotiate on the penalty.
''The government has a reconciliation approach. If both parties feel negotiation will benefit the state, they should negotiate,'' he said.
He noted that it would be too early to discuss a bankruptcy lawsuit against the station.
iTV chairman Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisal yesterday assured his staff that their salary and welfare benefits would not be affected and he would do his best to keep the station going. He said the board would meet on Dec 29 to discuss the penalty payment and consider options.
Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, chief executive of Asia Plus Securities, has suggested iTV negotiate with the government to stay afloat rather than going bankrupt and becoming a burden on the state.
Asia Plus Securities was iTV's financial adviser during the station's market listing several years ago.
''In my opinion, the only solution for iTV is to negotiate and seek a compromise to solve this financial difficulty. The station should seek to revise its concession to make it more competitive when compared to the other players,'' he said.
If the government buys out iTV, the cost would be relatively low given the current stock price. Authorities could then delist the firm from the market and transform it into a non-profit organisation.
Shares of iTV fell the maximum 30% yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, following a 25% decline on Wednesday. The stock closed at an all-time low of 1.47 baht, down 63 satang, in trade worth 287.2 million baht.
Academic Surapol Sriwittaya, of Rangsit University, has advised that the government revoke the concession and enact a law decreeing the station as a national public television station.
Bonds should be issued to the station staff and the general public to raise funds. The 99-billion-baht penalty should be used to rehabilitate the station, he said.
''This is to free the station from the concession and monopoly and ownership by Singapore's Temasek in a legitimate way,'' he said.
He also called for removal of iTV senior board members appointed by Shin Corp.
A source at the Administrative Court yesterday doubted that the PM's Office could impose the penalty.
According to the source, the station had complied with a separate arbitration ruling made in 2004 and immediately revamped its programmes after the Supreme Administrative Court's verdict given on Wednesday.
''All the court did was revoke that arbitration committee's ruling. It doesn't obligate iTV to pay the penalty. As a matter of fact, the station didn't breach the contract. It simply complied with the arbitration,'' said the source.
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont was reserved about speculation the government would revert the station to state control. He also played down speculation the matter would be considered by the cabinet next Tuesday.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Bangkok Post
Attorney-general calls for talks on penalty
POST REPORTERS
The Prime Minister's Office, a contract partner with the iTV station, is determined to impose a 45-day deadline for iTV to pay the office its concession fee and fine amounting to 99.97 billion baht. ''At this stage, we must only abide by the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling and implement it quickly,'' said Chulayut Hiranyawasit, permanent secretary of the PM's Office, at a press conference in response to the Wednesday verdict by the Supreme Administrative Court.
Mr Chulayut said payment must be made within 45 days, but noted that the office is willing to extend the deadline by another 45 days if iTV is unable to pay.
He said his office submitted the dispute on the calculation method of annual fee and fine to the Office of the Attorney-General shortly after the ruling in May by the Central Administrative Court.
At the same time, he said the cabinet will consider the fate of iTV on Tuesday.
The Office of the Attoney-General yesterday gave some hope to iTV by saying it has the right to appeal and the dispute will be ruled upon by an arbitration panel.
Attorney-General Pachara Yutidhammadamrong said the contract between the PM's Office and iTV requires disputes over fees and penalties to be settled by an arbitration committee.
The PM's Office puts the penalties as of May this year at about 94 billion baht while the station argues it should not exceed 300 million baht, saying the PM's Office calculation, which relies on a news/entertainment programme ratio agreement on a daily basis was unacceptable.
But Mr Pachara said that if after 45 days of negotiation in the arbitration stage no solution could be reached, his agency would seek the court to declare iTV bankrupt. ''The pressing issue is that both parties must find a solution soon. If they fail, the station is likely to be restored as a state asset,'' he said.
Deputy Attorney-General Poramet Intarachumnum said a new arbitration panel will be set up to rule on the case if the station objects to the PM's Office's demand. He said Thongchai Prasatvanich, director-general for conflict resolution and arbitration, is examining the PM's Office document before taking the next step.
He urged both parties to negotiate on the penalty.
''The government has a reconciliation approach. If both parties feel negotiation will benefit the state, they should negotiate,'' he said.
He noted that it would be too early to discuss a bankruptcy lawsuit against the station.
iTV chairman Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisal yesterday assured his staff that their salary and welfare benefits would not be affected and he would do his best to keep the station going. He said the board would meet on Dec 29 to discuss the penalty payment and consider options.
Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, chief executive of Asia Plus Securities, has suggested iTV negotiate with the government to stay afloat rather than going bankrupt and becoming a burden on the state.
Asia Plus Securities was iTV's financial adviser during the station's market listing several years ago.
''In my opinion, the only solution for iTV is to negotiate and seek a compromise to solve this financial difficulty. The station should seek to revise its concession to make it more competitive when compared to the other players,'' he said.
If the government buys out iTV, the cost would be relatively low given the current stock price. Authorities could then delist the firm from the market and transform it into a non-profit organisation.
Shares of iTV fell the maximum 30% yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, following a 25% decline on Wednesday. The stock closed at an all-time low of 1.47 baht, down 63 satang, in trade worth 287.2 million baht.
Academic Surapol Sriwittaya, of Rangsit University, has advised that the government revoke the concession and enact a law decreeing the station as a national public television station.
Bonds should be issued to the station staff and the general public to raise funds. The 99-billion-baht penalty should be used to rehabilitate the station, he said.
''This is to free the station from the concession and monopoly and ownership by Singapore's Temasek in a legitimate way,'' he said.
He also called for removal of iTV senior board members appointed by Shin Corp.
A source at the Administrative Court yesterday doubted that the PM's Office could impose the penalty.
According to the source, the station had complied with a separate arbitration ruling made in 2004 and immediately revamped its programmes after the Supreme Administrative Court's verdict given on Wednesday.
''All the court did was revoke that arbitration committee's ruling. It doesn't obligate iTV to pay the penalty. As a matter of fact, the station didn't breach the contract. It simply complied with the arbitration,'' said the source.
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont was reserved about speculation the government would revert the station to state control. He also played down speculation the matter would be considered by the cabinet next Tuesday.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Thursday, November 23, 2006
7% GST Will Make The Poor, Poorer
For those residing in Singapore ...
Example 1
In 2006, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $60,000, the income tax you need to pay is $2,700 ( 8.75%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 5% will be $480 Total=$3,180 in Tax paid.
In 2007, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $60,000, the income tax you need to pay is $2,600 ( 8.50%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 7% will be $672 Total=$3,272 in Tax paid.
From $3,180 to $3,272, the effective increase is 2.89%.
Example 2
In 2006, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $400,000, the income tax you need to pay is $61,650 (21%). If you spend $4,000 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 5% will be $2,400 Total=$64,050 in Tax paid.
In 2007, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $400,000, the income tax you need to pay is $58,700 (20%). If you spend $4,000 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 7% will be $3,360 Total=$62,060 in Tax paid.
From $64,050 to $62,060, the effective decrease is -3.11%.
Example 3
In 2006, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $25,000, the income tax you need to pay is $187.50 ( 3.75%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 5% will be $480 Total=$667.50 in Tax paid.
In 2007, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $25,000, the income tax you need to pay is $175 ( 3.5%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 7% will be $672 Total=$847 in Tax paid.
From $667.50 to $847, the effective increase is 26.89%.
The fact is: The poorer you are the more the GST is going to make you poorer.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Example 1
In 2006, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $60,000, the income tax you need to pay is $2,700 ( 8.75%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 5% will be $480 Total=$3,180 in Tax paid.
In 2007, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $60,000, the income tax you need to pay is $2,600 ( 8.50%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 7% will be $672 Total=$3,272 in Tax paid.
From $3,180 to $3,272, the effective increase is 2.89%.
Example 2
In 2006, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $400,000, the income tax you need to pay is $61,650 (21%). If you spend $4,000 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 5% will be $2,400 Total=$64,050 in Tax paid.
In 2007, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $400,000, the income tax you need to pay is $58,700 (20%). If you spend $4,000 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 7% will be $3,360 Total=$62,060 in Tax paid.
From $64,050 to $62,060, the effective decrease is -3.11%.
Example 3
In 2006, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $25,000, the income tax you need to pay is $187.50 ( 3.75%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 5% will be $480 Total=$667.50 in Tax paid.
In 2007, if after rebates etc and your net taxable income is $25,000, the income tax you need to pay is $175 ( 3.5%). If you spend $800 a month on needed goods and services, the GST paid for 7% will be $672 Total=$847 in Tax paid.
From $667.50 to $847, the effective increase is 26.89%.
The fact is: The poorer you are the more the GST is going to make you poorer.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Tribute To The Freedom Fighters
As we see rampant corruption, people suffering and unfair happenings throughout the world, let us not forget to lead a dignified life...and do it your way. The people will remember you and pay tribute to you even when you die. Here's to Elvis.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Friday, November 17, 2006
Internet Marketing Seminar Launched - 1000% Money Back Guarantee
The Singapore Government is going to make Singapore a Wireless Hub. Beginning on Jan 2007, there will be more than 20,000 hot spots catering to free wireless access for the next two years. Why do you think they’re doing that? The internet is really booming and making a lot of people rich. Would you want to have a piece of all that? What if there are ways and means that can help you achieve top rankings in search engines with minimal effort?
Internet Marketing Seminar organized by Internet-Empire.com is targeted at helping you get started with a breeze.
For more information please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com
To check out the pre-launch video, please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com/seminar/seminar.html
Internet Marketing Seminar (The World’s Only Internet Marketing Seminar That Offer’s 1,000% Money Back Guarantee)
(Comes With 6 Months Post Seminar Support – To Make Sure You Succeed)
Participants will also receive high quality Step-By-Step DVD Videos to make sure you can do it.
"The Most Comprehensive Internet Marketing Training Program Ever To Be Launched On The Internet."
29 Step By Step DVD Videos!!!
Basic
Video 1 - Basic Introduction of Internet Terminologies / File Structure / Folder Structure / Naming Convention (+ Internet Security Softwares)
Video 2 - Identifying niche markets / Keyword Analysis / Competitor Analysis / How to target the ideal keyword (low-lying fruit)
Video 3 - Purchasing Domains / Hosting
Video 4 - FTP Software / How to do FTP / Understanding Root Folder
Video 5 - Installing Forum / WordPress
Video 6 - How to create / Edit Website in 5 minutes or less
Video 7 - Creating Metatags / Title / Description
Video 8 - Page Rank / Alexa Ranking Explained / Addiing Alexa Toolbar
Intermediate
Video 9 - Article Marketing / Submission
Video 10 - Making your articles rank top of search engines.
Video 11 - Creating content / How to add 10 web-pages of content in less than 5 minutes and build a content rich website.
Video 12 - How to create article directory
Video 13 - Forum Marketing
Video 14 - How to configure Opt In List / Auto Responder
Video 15 - How to do effective copywriting
Video 16 - Creating Link Structure / Link Directory
Video 17 - How not to get banned by Google and other search engines
Video 18 - How to do link exchange with no risk
Video 19 - Configuration of payment gateways like Paypal / 2CO
Advance Internet Marketing Strategies
Video 20 - Get multiple keywords ranked No.1 in Google / MSN / Yahoo
Video 21 - Advanced SEO Strategies
Video 22 - Advanced / Accelerated Linking Strategies
Video 23 - How to make your website complex and sticky
Video 24 - Automate your business and make money while you sleep
Video 25 - Bonus Website Templates / Editing Images / Free Webmaster Resources
Video 26 - How to be a successful in affiliate marketing
Video 27 - How to publish Audio + Free Audio Software - New!!!
SPECIAL Bonuses
Resell rights of Seminar and DVDs - New!!!
(Special 8 Hour - Seminar Recording - DVD) New!!!
Video 28 - Yahoo Groups Marketing - New!!!
Video 29 - Safelist Marketing - New!!!
Who Should Attend?
Website Owners / Webmasters
Entrepreneurs
Business Owners
Retrenched or Jobless
For more information, please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Internet Marketing Seminar organized by Internet-Empire.com is targeted at helping you get started with a breeze.
For more information please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com
To check out the pre-launch video, please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com/seminar/seminar.html
Internet Marketing Seminar (The World’s Only Internet Marketing Seminar That Offer’s 1,000% Money Back Guarantee)
(Comes With 6 Months Post Seminar Support – To Make Sure You Succeed)
Participants will also receive high quality Step-By-Step DVD Videos to make sure you can do it.
"The Most Comprehensive Internet Marketing Training Program Ever To Be Launched On The Internet."
29 Step By Step DVD Videos!!!
Basic
Video 1 - Basic Introduction of Internet Terminologies / File Structure / Folder Structure / Naming Convention (+ Internet Security Softwares)
Video 2 - Identifying niche markets / Keyword Analysis / Competitor Analysis / How to target the ideal keyword (low-lying fruit)
Video 3 - Purchasing Domains / Hosting
Video 4 - FTP Software / How to do FTP / Understanding Root Folder
Video 5 - Installing Forum / WordPress
Video 6 - How to create / Edit Website in 5 minutes or less
Video 7 - Creating Metatags / Title / Description
Video 8 - Page Rank / Alexa Ranking Explained / Addiing Alexa Toolbar
Intermediate
Video 9 - Article Marketing / Submission
Video 10 - Making your articles rank top of search engines.
Video 11 - Creating content / How to add 10 web-pages of content in less than 5 minutes and build a content rich website.
Video 12 - How to create article directory
Video 13 - Forum Marketing
Video 14 - How to configure Opt In List / Auto Responder
Video 15 - How to do effective copywriting
Video 16 - Creating Link Structure / Link Directory
Video 17 - How not to get banned by Google and other search engines
Video 18 - How to do link exchange with no risk
Video 19 - Configuration of payment gateways like Paypal / 2CO
Advance Internet Marketing Strategies
Video 20 - Get multiple keywords ranked No.1 in Google / MSN / Yahoo
Video 21 - Advanced SEO Strategies
Video 22 - Advanced / Accelerated Linking Strategies
Video 23 - How to make your website complex and sticky
Video 24 - Automate your business and make money while you sleep
Video 25 - Bonus Website Templates / Editing Images / Free Webmaster Resources
Video 26 - How to be a successful in affiliate marketing
Video 27 - How to publish Audio + Free Audio Software - New!!!
SPECIAL Bonuses
Resell rights of Seminar and DVDs - New!!!
(Special 8 Hour - Seminar Recording - DVD) New!!!
Video 28 - Yahoo Groups Marketing - New!!!
Video 29 - Safelist Marketing - New!!!
Who Should Attend?
Website Owners / Webmasters
Entrepreneurs
Business Owners
Retrenched or Jobless
For more information, please visit: http://www.internet-empire.com
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Irene Ng - What An Accent!!!
http://video2.channelnewsasia.com/cnavideos/multiplevideos_watermark.asp?skin=player1.swf&bgskin=playerbackground.swf&filename=irene%201011.flv&adfilebefore=cna%20video2.flv&adfileafter=&playmode=S
I must say that I had a hard time trying to grasp what was she trying to say. She is trying too hard to sound like a British. I thought we're no longer under colonial rule???
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
I must say that I had a hard time trying to grasp what was she trying to say. She is trying too hard to sound like a British. I thought we're no longer under colonial rule???
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Scholarship Without Bonds
We have seen increase in tuition fees for Universities. We have also seen talented Singaporeans forced to study overseas because there weren’t enough slots allocated for them. How about the middle class who can’t afford to send their children overseas for studies? We have seen an increase in debts for undergraduates over tuition and course fees. It seems that being non-Singaporeans have better privileges.
I was talking to an Indian undergraduate who was studying for his Masters at NUS. We started chatting and what I found out was very disturbing. He had come from Chennai to study in Singapore. He was offered scholarship to study in NUS so I asked him who pays for his scholarship. Was it the Government of India? No, he said. But you have to serve out some of bond right? I asked. No, I can go back to India after my studies with no obligation. I was dumbfounded. I will not be surprise if the other scholarships given out to the students from China, Philippines offer that as well. No wonder our scholarships are running out like hotcakes.
Just how do you grade the intellectual capability of an individual? Having excelled in studying only means that the individual is good at memorizing perfect answers. It does not necessary mean that the person in question has the ability to be successful, make important decisions or the passion to use his knowledge to good use. Very soon, we will be training many intelligent scholars only to find out that we are doing our neighbours a favour.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
I was talking to an Indian undergraduate who was studying for his Masters at NUS. We started chatting and what I found out was very disturbing. He had come from Chennai to study in Singapore. He was offered scholarship to study in NUS so I asked him who pays for his scholarship. Was it the Government of India? No, he said. But you have to serve out some of bond right? I asked. No, I can go back to India after my studies with no obligation. I was dumbfounded. I will not be surprise if the other scholarships given out to the students from China, Philippines offer that as well. No wonder our scholarships are running out like hotcakes.
Just how do you grade the intellectual capability of an individual? Having excelled in studying only means that the individual is good at memorizing perfect answers. It does not necessary mean that the person in question has the ability to be successful, make important decisions or the passion to use his knowledge to good use. Very soon, we will be training many intelligent scholars only to find out that we are doing our neighbours a favour.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Double Standards From The Government?
We have seen the continuous efforts from the government telling Singaporeans the need to get their skills upgraded in this ever competitive landscape. On one hand, we have been told that when we upgrade our skill-sets, opportunities will be plentiful. On the other hand, the government opens the flood gate in issuing work permits and PR status, thus creating competition for Singaporeans. I think the agencies in question need to sit down to look into this seriously. What are the priorities?
What is more important? Getting more ‘would be Singaporeans’ to join us to boost our GDP or helping real ‘authentic’ Singaporeans find jobs? It seems that the government is interested in getting quick fixes. I have seen reports saying we need to have foreign talents so that MNCs would be more interested in setting up operations and investing in Singapore. Let’s not forget that the Government’s responsibility is to take care of its people first. What’s the point of having investments in the pipeline when there are real Singaporeans suffering and can’t wait to end their lives. We have heard of the $500,000 MRT ride.
We have also not seen the actual breakdown of jobs that was really offered to Singaporeans as MOM has a way of including PRs as Singaporeans. Perhaps more could be researched onto how long a PR actually stays in Singapore before they leave the country and how many of these PRs actually commit themselves and become a Singaporean.
I want to make a clear distinction between foreign talents and foreign workers. Not all foreign workers are really talented and thanks for the excellent branding our government gives them. We have just inadvertently told the world that we’re not good enough. Try telling that to the South Koreans, a country that treasures their local talents and have made huge leaps of progress without jeopardizing welfare and jobs by opening up the flood gates via a foreign talent policy.
Living standards are rising by the day but it seems that salaries have not increased much to match inflation. What’s the reason for that? The influx of foreign talents is the root cause of it. We should welcome the foreign talents but not ‘over embracing’ them. Can you tell me which employer would not like to have lower paying salaried workers? By having an over supply of low-wage workers, it is just Economics 101. The salaries will either maintain or go down. This situation worsens when we have more supply. Take a look at Old Chang Kee and you will see workers of different nationalities. When there are too much foreign entry level workers and not enough jobs, we create other social problems. Crime rates go up but at whose expense? Just take a look at Little India and you will realize that it can get really rowdy at times.
How about the mid-tier jobs? You have slogged through 16 years of studying only to realize that there are literally thousands of foreign workers vying for the same job. With that ratio, it is hardly surprising that all the good jobs would have already been taken up. In India alone, there are 400,000 computer science graduates every year. How about China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam? By making Singapore a haven, the situation is only going to get worse. We need to ask ourselves when the authorities will say enough is enough and put a stop to that. Until we hit a population of 7 or 8 Million people? What are the jobs left then? Jobs like Retail, Customer Service, Receptionist, Insurance / Property Agents? You don’t study 16 years to do that.
Let’s not forget our roots and create a Singaporean for Singapore society.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
What is more important? Getting more ‘would be Singaporeans’ to join us to boost our GDP or helping real ‘authentic’ Singaporeans find jobs? It seems that the government is interested in getting quick fixes. I have seen reports saying we need to have foreign talents so that MNCs would be more interested in setting up operations and investing in Singapore. Let’s not forget that the Government’s responsibility is to take care of its people first. What’s the point of having investments in the pipeline when there are real Singaporeans suffering and can’t wait to end their lives. We have heard of the $500,000 MRT ride.
We have also not seen the actual breakdown of jobs that was really offered to Singaporeans as MOM has a way of including PRs as Singaporeans. Perhaps more could be researched onto how long a PR actually stays in Singapore before they leave the country and how many of these PRs actually commit themselves and become a Singaporean.
I want to make a clear distinction between foreign talents and foreign workers. Not all foreign workers are really talented and thanks for the excellent branding our government gives them. We have just inadvertently told the world that we’re not good enough. Try telling that to the South Koreans, a country that treasures their local talents and have made huge leaps of progress without jeopardizing welfare and jobs by opening up the flood gates via a foreign talent policy.
Living standards are rising by the day but it seems that salaries have not increased much to match inflation. What’s the reason for that? The influx of foreign talents is the root cause of it. We should welcome the foreign talents but not ‘over embracing’ them. Can you tell me which employer would not like to have lower paying salaried workers? By having an over supply of low-wage workers, it is just Economics 101. The salaries will either maintain or go down. This situation worsens when we have more supply. Take a look at Old Chang Kee and you will see workers of different nationalities. When there are too much foreign entry level workers and not enough jobs, we create other social problems. Crime rates go up but at whose expense? Just take a look at Little India and you will realize that it can get really rowdy at times.
How about the mid-tier jobs? You have slogged through 16 years of studying only to realize that there are literally thousands of foreign workers vying for the same job. With that ratio, it is hardly surprising that all the good jobs would have already been taken up. In India alone, there are 400,000 computer science graduates every year. How about China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam? By making Singapore a haven, the situation is only going to get worse. We need to ask ourselves when the authorities will say enough is enough and put a stop to that. Until we hit a population of 7 or 8 Million people? What are the jobs left then? Jobs like Retail, Customer Service, Receptionist, Insurance / Property Agents? You don’t study 16 years to do that.
Let’s not forget our roots and create a Singaporean for Singapore society.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Wrong To Charge 17 Year Old Teen Over Wireless Tapping
I’ve read in a report in Straits Times earlier that a man had decided to press charges on Garyl Tan Jia Luo over a wireless tapping incident. I’m a wireless internet user myself and I am saying this is a harsh decision that would send the wrong signals to the Internet community with our Wireless SG initiatives starting by 1st Jan 2007.
As far as I know, there are a few methods that could have prevented this incident. The owner could have done any of the following steps to prevent his wireless network from being accessed but he failed to do so.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
As far as I know, there are a few methods that could have prevented this incident. The owner could have done any of the following steps to prevent his wireless network from being accessed but he failed to do so.
- 1) Secure his wireless network by adding a WPA or WEP encryption
- 2) Adding MAC address so that only PCs/Laptops with the designated address can assess
- 3) Not publishing the Name of his wireless network
All wireless router vendors have detail user guides to easily configure the first two commonly used steps. An average user could have easily configured the necessary settings to prevent any unwelcome visits to his wireless networks but the owner had failed to do so. If he had not known the steps he could have contacted his vendor for more details.
Let me give you an analogy. ‘Imagine you are returning home one day and you see your neighbour’s door wide open, what would you do? If it were me, I would likely go into my neighbour’s house to see what happened.’ Just out of curiosity but it does not mean I have ill intentions.
Similarly it is unlikely a malicious attempt for Garyl to access the owners network. Anybody who frequent hotspots will know they need to search for wireless networks like SkynetGlobal if they’re looking at connecting to the free internet access at McDonalds.Let me give you real scenario that happens all the time.
Let’s say I’m a new linksys wireless router user and without configuration it will be named ‘linksys’. There are a lot of non IT savvy guys staying near me. I log on to my computer but I forgot to turn on my router. My computer is automatically configured to hunt for my primary network ‘linksys’. Later, an amateur user who did not configure his network comes online. I access to his ‘linksys’ network unintentionally and unknowingly. Does it mean I’m liable to be prosecuted?
Let us understand the fact that Garyl is still a young kid and we are talking about a home network here. We are not talking about hacking into a corporate server that has tons of classified information. By sharing the same wireless network as the owner, it is highly unlikely that Garyl would have been able to access any classified information.
He could only have access to shared folders; that is unless the owner decides to share his folders. Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill. “If Garyl should be prosecuted for his actions, then the owner should also be prosecuted for his actions in attracting other internet users and causing them to be prosecuted.”
I hope the MP serving the constituents of Casuarina Walk would look into the matter and assist Garyl to make sure we do not condemn this kid’s future before it even started.
Edmund Ng
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
No More Sending Letters To Straits Times.
I've been sending a lot of letters to the Straits Times. Guess what. This was the reply I got for every single one of them. I will stop sending letters to Straits Times from now and will be posting on my blog instead.
Edmund Ng
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for writing to us. We do appreciate your making the effort. We receive 70 letters on average each day. Limited space means we can publish only about a dozen every weekday. This means having to make often-difficult editorial judgments on which letters to publish. We regret we are unable to publish your letter, and hope you will appreciate the constraints on space we face every day. We hope you will continue taking an interest in the Forum Page.
Yours sincerely
Ms Noor Aiza
for Forum EditorThe Straits Times
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Edmund Ng
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for writing to us. We do appreciate your making the effort. We receive 70 letters on average each day. Limited space means we can publish only about a dozen every weekday. This means having to make often-difficult editorial judgments on which letters to publish. We regret we are unable to publish your letter, and hope you will appreciate the constraints on space we face every day. We hope you will continue taking an interest in the Forum Page.
Yours sincerely
Ms Noor Aiza
for Forum EditorThe Straits Times
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Once Bitten, Twice Shy, Third Time Stupid.
Ever wondered why you can’t seem to find employment in the Fortune 500 companies? Chances are your resume might be blacklisted.
Over the years in recruitment, I have seen many job applicants make the same mistake again and again. This is a fatal mistake that I feel need to be addressed. These are the list of things that you should not do in the event of applying for jobs.
Do not spam the HR executives
A lot of desperate job seekers had been committing this same mistake. If you visit the yahoo groups, you will realize that some of the members are so helpful that they list out all the email addresses of the HR executives and headhunting/recruitment firms. It is really scary as the list comes in hundreds and thousands. Not surprisingly, my email was included in it as we're in the headhunting business as well.
Guess what happens when the hr executives receive your email. Count yourself really lucky if they don't list your email in the spam folder. What have you achieved? Nothing, but you have probably pissed people off. If you are one of those that enjoy broadcasting your resume, you would probably ban yourself from applying for jobs. Most of the established companies have got spam filters installed and even if your email doesn’t get picked up by spam filters, your resume is likely banned from their database. Word get around fast and all HR executives normal share a common pull of blacklist resumes.
Do not submit your resume to job portals where anybody can assess
I always receive calls from a lot of jobseekers asking me why they are not able to find job opportunities with large MNCs. It's not as if they do not qualify as some of them do have pretty good credentials. As all these queries piled up, I decided to do some cross reference with some of my clients to find out what was the main problem. Guess what was the reply?
Oh...they have been banned. Why have they been banned, I asked? Well by submitting their resumes to job portals that all employers have full access to (e.g Monster.com), you have just flooded the market with their resumes. You might think it might be a good thing but this should be done only on a last resort. Why is it so? Basically all the recruitment firms accessing that has access to the portal will pick your resume up as well. Imagine 30 or 40 recruitment firms submitting your resume to companies like Microsoft and Accenture. What happens? Your name gets strike off even if you apply directly to the company later.
Do Not Submit Your Resume More Than Once
By submitting your resume more than once you're really getting on people's nerves. A lot of people do not know that. What do you think I do when I receive the same resume 3 or 4 times a day? I delete his email and go to the spam filter and block his email address. That's what most HR executives do as well. Remember, your job is to send a neat & professional resume to make sure that the HR executives can do their job easily. You help them by helping yourself.
Always Indicate The Job Title/Code
Imagine a large MNC who has got 50 different openings. Out comes a resume that does not indicate any intention. What do you think the HR executive will do? Your resume will probably end up in the deleted mail folder. Do you think the HR executive has time to call all the candidates? They might do so if your resume is really well written. Imagine 50 X 100 resumes. The likely chance is that your resume will end up being deleted.
Now you understand the meaning of Once Bitten, Twice Shy, Third Time Stupid. There are so many people who continue to make these glaring mistakes day after day and that is going to impact on their career if they are choosing to join a large and reputable firm. More importantly, you need a good solid resume that bring you far in your career.
To sum it up, these are the things that you shouldn't do to avoid losing the opportunity of joining an MNC.
1 - Do not Spam the HR executives if there are no genuine opportunities advertised.
2 - Do not submit your resume to job portals where anybody can assess.
3 - Do not submit your resume more than once.
4 - Always indicate the job code.
Follow these steps and you stand a better chance of securing a good job. Do you have the necessary resume writing skills? You better have them.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Over the years in recruitment, I have seen many job applicants make the same mistake again and again. This is a fatal mistake that I feel need to be addressed. These are the list of things that you should not do in the event of applying for jobs.
Do not spam the HR executives
A lot of desperate job seekers had been committing this same mistake. If you visit the yahoo groups, you will realize that some of the members are so helpful that they list out all the email addresses of the HR executives and headhunting/recruitment firms. It is really scary as the list comes in hundreds and thousands. Not surprisingly, my email was included in it as we're in the headhunting business as well.
Guess what happens when the hr executives receive your email. Count yourself really lucky if they don't list your email in the spam folder. What have you achieved? Nothing, but you have probably pissed people off. If you are one of those that enjoy broadcasting your resume, you would probably ban yourself from applying for jobs. Most of the established companies have got spam filters installed and even if your email doesn’t get picked up by spam filters, your resume is likely banned from their database. Word get around fast and all HR executives normal share a common pull of blacklist resumes.
Do not submit your resume to job portals where anybody can assess
I always receive calls from a lot of jobseekers asking me why they are not able to find job opportunities with large MNCs. It's not as if they do not qualify as some of them do have pretty good credentials. As all these queries piled up, I decided to do some cross reference with some of my clients to find out what was the main problem. Guess what was the reply?
Oh...they have been banned. Why have they been banned, I asked? Well by submitting their resumes to job portals that all employers have full access to (e.g Monster.com), you have just flooded the market with their resumes. You might think it might be a good thing but this should be done only on a last resort. Why is it so? Basically all the recruitment firms accessing that has access to the portal will pick your resume up as well. Imagine 30 or 40 recruitment firms submitting your resume to companies like Microsoft and Accenture. What happens? Your name gets strike off even if you apply directly to the company later.
Do Not Submit Your Resume More Than Once
By submitting your resume more than once you're really getting on people's nerves. A lot of people do not know that. What do you think I do when I receive the same resume 3 or 4 times a day? I delete his email and go to the spam filter and block his email address. That's what most HR executives do as well. Remember, your job is to send a neat & professional resume to make sure that the HR executives can do their job easily. You help them by helping yourself.
Always Indicate The Job Title/Code
Imagine a large MNC who has got 50 different openings. Out comes a resume that does not indicate any intention. What do you think the HR executive will do? Your resume will probably end up in the deleted mail folder. Do you think the HR executive has time to call all the candidates? They might do so if your resume is really well written. Imagine 50 X 100 resumes. The likely chance is that your resume will end up being deleted.
Now you understand the meaning of Once Bitten, Twice Shy, Third Time Stupid. There are so many people who continue to make these glaring mistakes day after day and that is going to impact on their career if they are choosing to join a large and reputable firm. More importantly, you need a good solid resume that bring you far in your career.
To sum it up, these are the things that you shouldn't do to avoid losing the opportunity of joining an MNC.
1 - Do not Spam the HR executives if there are no genuine opportunities advertised.
2 - Do not submit your resume to job portals where anybody can assess.
3 - Do not submit your resume more than once.
4 - Always indicate the job code.
Follow these steps and you stand a better chance of securing a good job. Do you have the necessary resume writing skills? You better have them.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Who Took Your Million Dollar Job
Have you ever wondered why all the good paying jobs just seemed to go to someone else? Is there something you don’t know? Ultimate secrets revealed.
It is obvious that many people go to colleges; universities get their degrees and thought that life is going to be good and the future is going to be great. It is after struggling to find a job for months do they realize that it is not as straight forward as it seems. You might be a graduate from MIT or even Harvard but if you don't have a good and professional resume, it will kill you. Do you have the necessary resume writing skills?
You have invested in yourself by spending tens of thousands of dollars to get your degree. Your whole life had been studying and learning to the point that you are ready to reap the rewards. What do you do then? Go to Google and grab a resume template. It sounds really idiotic but just wait a minute and ask yourself this question. Isn't everybody doing that too! Oh yes, you've just joined the me-too group of job seekers.
In lots of marketing events you will always hear the marketing gurus say this. You need to differentiate yourself. You need to stand out from the rest. It is true. In every industry, only the top 5 players can be guaranteed of survival. Look around you and you will realize that the smaller players eventually fades off and new companies start to come to the scene and this cycle just repeats itself ever since the dawn of time.
That's the reason why you need to stand out from the rest. It doesn't matter where you graduated or how good your communication skills are. You need to be able to strike interest and gain the HR executive's attention. These folks normally spend less than 30-45 seconds reviewing each resume. You could expect at least 100-300 applicants applying for each job.
How Do You Get Your Resume Noticed?
First of all, forget about cover letters. Who reads it anyway? Through my experience serving the likes of large companies like IBM, Accenture, HP, Unilever and many more, there's one thing for sure. You do not need to send a cover letter. This information just helped you saved 100USD and I hope the resume providers don't hunt me down for sharing this piece of information.
I am going to share these trade secrets with you and please read it carefully.
Step 1
1. Do A Spell Check
HR executives hate it when applicants send word documents that are not checked and you get all sorts of red and greens from the error from Microsoft Word. Like I say before, they only spend 30-40 seconds reading each email. Their job is to just send the resume to the hiring manager and they need the resume to be perfectly readable. You can make their job easier by spell checking.
2. Never Use More Than 1 Font
A lot of times, I realized that most resumes that comes from India has got this problem. Apparently there are 4-5 different fonts with different sizes hijacking the resume. This makes my eyes pop up at times. Please avoid that. Don't use fancy fonts as well.
3. Drop the Cover Letters
Instead of paying hundreds and getting a 1-2 page cover letter that will confuse the HR executives, choose to write a small 1-2 paragraph of executive summary that is around 4-5 lines telling the HR executives what specific job you are applying and what are your strengths. Why no cover letters? Do you know how troublesome it is to file two documents instead of one? I can vouch that HR executives don't read cover letters. Period.
4. Use A Professional Looking Template
Please get a professional looking template. If you want to get average returns, you can do whatever the others are doing. Know the secrets of what those who work in large MNCs are doing. You need to have a resume that will excite the HR executives. One that is so good that they simply do not need do anything and can forward straightaway.
5. Knowing What A Job-Winning Resume Look Like
If you are applying for a job of an IT Consultant, you need to know what it looks like. Similarly for SAP, Oracle Consultants, Executive Director, Sales Manager, CPA, Account...etc. You need to know what a job-winning resume look like. There are lots of bogus resume providers out there. It's simple to setup a website and boast you are the best or the cheapest. But you seriously need to ask whether they know what they're doing about. It is better to work with vendors who walk the talk and preferably in the headhunting industry so that they know what they're doing. The job of the resume providers are there to fill the gaps and to consult/advise you on how they can best present you to the companies at large.
Coming back to the topic, 'Who Took Your Million Dollar Job'? I would like to ask you this question. Do you know of anybody who's in the same job as you who are making another $500 or $1000 extra? What if you can get the same deal or even better? Imagine you having $500 more every month. This adds up to around $6,000 a year excluding bonuses. If you were to multiply by 30 years it would add up to $180,000. However, if you were to compound the bonuses over the 30 years, you would be getting close to 1 Million Dollars. Now you ask, 'Who Took Your Million Dollars?'
The only fear is to sit around and do nothing. Here's the paradigm shift. If you always think the others are good and that's why they get good paying jobs then please go on complaining and bitching about how life sucks. I can assure you that a lot of them don't deserve the jobs they have but are there because they invested in themselves. They are there because they might have done something right. You might be next.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
It is obvious that many people go to colleges; universities get their degrees and thought that life is going to be good and the future is going to be great. It is after struggling to find a job for months do they realize that it is not as straight forward as it seems. You might be a graduate from MIT or even Harvard but if you don't have a good and professional resume, it will kill you. Do you have the necessary resume writing skills?
You have invested in yourself by spending tens of thousands of dollars to get your degree. Your whole life had been studying and learning to the point that you are ready to reap the rewards. What do you do then? Go to Google and grab a resume template. It sounds really idiotic but just wait a minute and ask yourself this question. Isn't everybody doing that too! Oh yes, you've just joined the me-too group of job seekers.
In lots of marketing events you will always hear the marketing gurus say this. You need to differentiate yourself. You need to stand out from the rest. It is true. In every industry, only the top 5 players can be guaranteed of survival. Look around you and you will realize that the smaller players eventually fades off and new companies start to come to the scene and this cycle just repeats itself ever since the dawn of time.
That's the reason why you need to stand out from the rest. It doesn't matter where you graduated or how good your communication skills are. You need to be able to strike interest and gain the HR executive's attention. These folks normally spend less than 30-45 seconds reviewing each resume. You could expect at least 100-300 applicants applying for each job.
How Do You Get Your Resume Noticed?
First of all, forget about cover letters. Who reads it anyway? Through my experience serving the likes of large companies like IBM, Accenture, HP, Unilever and many more, there's one thing for sure. You do not need to send a cover letter. This information just helped you saved 100USD and I hope the resume providers don't hunt me down for sharing this piece of information.
I am going to share these trade secrets with you and please read it carefully.
Step 1
1. Do A Spell Check
HR executives hate it when applicants send word documents that are not checked and you get all sorts of red and greens from the error from Microsoft Word. Like I say before, they only spend 30-40 seconds reading each email. Their job is to just send the resume to the hiring manager and they need the resume to be perfectly readable. You can make their job easier by spell checking.
2. Never Use More Than 1 Font
A lot of times, I realized that most resumes that comes from India has got this problem. Apparently there are 4-5 different fonts with different sizes hijacking the resume. This makes my eyes pop up at times. Please avoid that. Don't use fancy fonts as well.
3. Drop the Cover Letters
Instead of paying hundreds and getting a 1-2 page cover letter that will confuse the HR executives, choose to write a small 1-2 paragraph of executive summary that is around 4-5 lines telling the HR executives what specific job you are applying and what are your strengths. Why no cover letters? Do you know how troublesome it is to file two documents instead of one? I can vouch that HR executives don't read cover letters. Period.
4. Use A Professional Looking Template
Please get a professional looking template. If you want to get average returns, you can do whatever the others are doing. Know the secrets of what those who work in large MNCs are doing. You need to have a resume that will excite the HR executives. One that is so good that they simply do not need do anything and can forward straightaway.
5. Knowing What A Job-Winning Resume Look Like
If you are applying for a job of an IT Consultant, you need to know what it looks like. Similarly for SAP, Oracle Consultants, Executive Director, Sales Manager, CPA, Account...etc. You need to know what a job-winning resume look like. There are lots of bogus resume providers out there. It's simple to setup a website and boast you are the best or the cheapest. But you seriously need to ask whether they know what they're doing about. It is better to work with vendors who walk the talk and preferably in the headhunting industry so that they know what they're doing. The job of the resume providers are there to fill the gaps and to consult/advise you on how they can best present you to the companies at large.
Coming back to the topic, 'Who Took Your Million Dollar Job'? I would like to ask you this question. Do you know of anybody who's in the same job as you who are making another $500 or $1000 extra? What if you can get the same deal or even better? Imagine you having $500 more every month. This adds up to around $6,000 a year excluding bonuses. If you were to multiply by 30 years it would add up to $180,000. However, if you were to compound the bonuses over the 30 years, you would be getting close to 1 Million Dollars. Now you ask, 'Who Took Your Million Dollars?'
The only fear is to sit around and do nothing. Here's the paradigm shift. If you always think the others are good and that's why they get good paying jobs then please go on complaining and bitching about how life sucks. I can assure you that a lot of them don't deserve the jobs they have but are there because they invested in themselves. They are there because they might have done something right. You might be next.
Regards,
Edmund Ng,
CEO, President
www.Internet-Empire.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
