Rage & fear overtook public anger in Egypt since last month.10,000 protestors in Cairo’s Tahrir square chanted slogans against President Hosni Mubarak stood strong to endure intense fighting with police brutality while the dictator taking refuge from the protest at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh which known to be his favorite leisure place and his immediate family board jets for safe havens in Europe. Little that we know that cold war between U.S & Russia is where ARPANET, the world first packet switching network which is the grandfather of Internet back in 1969 evolve into a powerful social media tools like Facebook and help drive passionate anti-government protest. The erupt may just wait for the right time but isn’t coincidence that it happens where social media is the answer on how effective it is for people who shares mutual ideas & thoughts to march proud on the street coupled with strong youth angst among students who have been oppressed ever since.My answer is yes.

The rallies of anti-government protest across Middle East including what was happened in Tunisia and Egypt are cause by depression years of unemployment and frustration ranging from lack of political freedom to police brutality. But that was not the main reason that fueled the sparks. On 6 June 2010, Egyptian Khalid Saeed was found killed & evidence says police had done their part by taking his life brutally. This tragedy has created a tidal wave of interest between young people with the creation of the “We are all Khalid Saeed” Facebook group page. Fan grows into thousands and become powerful with a lot of petition,grievances, sudden protests and many small riots updates. Although Presiden Hosni Mubarak appointed a vice-president for the first time since he took his power as a strong signal that he might have second thought to still run for a sixth term in election due this year in 2011, he is already late to overcome the uprising Egyptians people who became united and believe that his 30 years ruling regime must go. The best part is what the protest organisers in Egypt and much of the world did not foresee that the revolution is already started in a small Tunisian town which later was called The Tunisia Twitter Revolution. Hundreds of opressed netizens have found a great deal of brotherhood to take this matters into their own hands and came down to take it to the streets in protest as a part of escalating tension, calling for the resignation while Hosni Mubarak desperately tries to hold on to power. But 3 decades of ruling with sticking his people under his radar is a way of stupidity when the technology of information superhighway grows rapidly just like consquences from the rule of nature; where the son is finally smart enough to find himself out from the ignorance of the lies from his father.Let’s reveal some of the fact that related to this country to make clear of my point here.

1) In 1990, according to World Bank, 14% of college-age Egyptians were enrolled; in 2008, 28.5 % were. Egyptians schools expanded and a crop of European universities opened campuses there. The Egyptian government doubled the funding for higher education in its 2007 five-year planand sought internation advice on revamping the system. In contrast of this positive moves, the 300-page examination of higher education in Egypt by the World Bank and Organization for Economic Development, published in 2010 noted “a continuing oversupply of university graduates, especially in the humanities & social sciences” and plus the ongoing complaints from the business employers that they couldn’t find workers with the skills they required.

2) High school graduates in Egypt account for 42% of the labor force but only 80% of the unemployed. 1 in every seven college graduates in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia in unemployed & many more are overqualified for the jobs they have.

3) Mourad Ezzine, a former Tunisian education experts who work the World Bank report, reveals that Arab countries spent heavily on higher education with the objective to boost economic growth, increase employment on higher paying income and reduce inequality of social economy within the society.”But it didnt work out well. For two reasons. First, the education system delivered quantity, not quality and second, on the economic side, the creation of employment to meet the profile of those graduates didn’t happen. Why ? Because the reforms in these countries did not go far enough, fast enough” said him.

4) Middle East countries including Egypt has few differences than other developing economic countries of the world. Fertility rates are staying higher than other countries in East Asia or Latin America which mean more employment opportunities as much as 9.4 millions jobs must be created to match with increasing citizens which now is already 80 million people as International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates. Labor forces in Middle East countries including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, & Tunisia have grown by 2.7% faster than anywhere outside Africa. That would take about 10% a year of economic growth which is now just 6% average of recent years statistics.

5) In survey of 2000 people in the Middle East between 18 and 24 years old by public relation firms ASDA’A Burston Marsteller which was released last year, two thirds of them told that their countries is likely moving to the right direction, in general. But unlike Egypt, only 26% of have similar agreement.

6) IMF in its report also reveal that while most of other rising powers like China were diversifying their growth through privates sectors, Egypt still left behind by depending on state model economics. A small percentage of college students are hired for jobs or even offered courses that matches with private-sector jobs. Lack of economic growth that failed to provide more jobs outside government employment and the dominance role of the government jobs as favourite choices as an employer have left critical point where unemployment rising every year. Based on the current scenario, over 70% of the population in Egypt which are employed, works in government.

For the 1960’s youth culture, Berkeley was where the Free Speech Movement is coming to its momentum and the beginning that later into the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights and anti-Vietnam War protest movements. As time flies, human will always learn history to remind them there are many dreams that need to be fulfill from generation to generation and this point stand clear to what happened in 2004 where was an estimated 250 social protest in Egypt where the another infamous movement name Kefaya Movement was born and burst onto scene with only small numbers of active members.Although 50 years of history in Berkeley remain unknown to mass media and the ongoing internal conflict within this Kefaya Movement which seems to weaken their prospects has found lights after participation of thousands young internet savvy members just when the phenomenon of Facebook comes out, whom also a university students.

I leave you guys with this speech manifesto for you to understand this dream that will never be going to end in each generation.

“We regard men and women as infinitely possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom and love. Men and women have unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding and creativity. We would replace power rooted in possession, privilege, or circumstance by power and uniqueness rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason and creativity.”

Mohd Ridhzuan Harun
12 Feb 2011

Ref:

Owedat, N., Benard,C., Stahl,D., Kildani,W., O’Connell E. and Grant, AK., “The Kefaya Movement – A Case Study of a Grassroots Reform Initiatives”, National Defense Research Institute (accessed 11 Feb 2011)

Reviews of National Policies for Education – Higher Education in Egypt, Organisation For Economic Co-Operation and Development & IBRD / World Bank (2010), ISBN 978-92-64-07723-2 (print) / ISBN 978-92-64-08434-6 (PDF),

Regional Economic Outlook, Middle East & Central Asia, May 25 2010. International Monetary Fund. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ ft/reo/2010/MCD/eng/mreo0510.htm (accessed 11 Feb 2011)

Wessel,D 2011. “Arab world built colleges, not jobs” The Wall Street Journal, Feb 7, pp14.

Students for a Democratic Society http://www.studentsforademocraticsociety.org/ (accessed 11 Feb 2011)

IBM, the world’s famous computer giant, has introduced a education opportunities for global citizens to come to India and study their certified training courses. Referred as education tourism, all travel general packages such as visa’s,accomodation & even flight tickets will be take care by learning provider here in India. Stratom IT Solutions, which is an India based IT company is the strategic partener and will be assisting IBM by conduction courses from the IBM Power and IBM System Storage Curriculum.

Read more…..

Based on my explanation above, you might have feelings that I was right all the way about what I think of the strong benefits that good PR can give to us.The question is – Why should PR not be included in economic value? To explain more, Public Relation isn’t something that might be calculated in financial budget as something that can give profit in return.It’s not like Marketing department which has strong projection about what will the expected result can be achieved if certain campaign or method is being actioned within the timeframe.It’s also not like Human Resources, where companies spend a certain budget to advertise the employment and also employee training – both has calculated profit that can be measure through yearly employee evaluation review.I think I do no have to explain about Advertising budget, which is so common these days that most people even outsides from management skills level has a certain degree of understand how  good advertising will lead to better reception of product to the public.Do you know that in business rules, most company believes that advertising comes first after the quality of product ?

I can’t believe some people still consider that PR is worth included in Miscellaneous fees.

Ridhzuan Harun

But after a day of exciting learning experiences, i feel something strange. It’s like, the more I try to run and chasing my dream, the more I feel that my destiny is something that was really near with me. Something that I should’ve known before. I wonder why FINAS was so closed to my primary schools,my secondary schools and even my home.I wonder why is it normal for me to see a TV drama or film production is doing their outdoor work, which I very often encounter such things. I remember there was TV production called ‘Jangan Ketawa’ did one of their episodes in my school when I was 11 years old.Suddenly it coming back to my mind in last 2 year, when my previous employer RHB Bank was having a annual dinner for my department in Royale Bintang, I was  the “Choosen One” to be on the stage performing spontaneous Spidey costume tricks, with the host at that night whose name is Dee, which happens to be one of the actor that starred in Jangan Ketawa.Damn, I was wearing a black tuxedo that night and he happens to joke around by showing his lust to a boy like me.That was in front of more than 100 crowd of my colleagues that knew me with my 5 years of unforgettable working experience there. I purposely avoiding any small talk that would makes him flash back all those moments in schools while talking to him.  That was a hundred of my objections of chances to be in anything that related with acting,filming or anything that related with broadcasting business.No, it’s not that I hate this business. I got so many friends,cousins and former schoolmates that involved in this and it’s like the TV drama and film are small for me, I can tell more than 70 % of the places that this film/TV production was shooting nearby places that are my stomping ground.Maybe it’s was me, who thought that having so much priorities and biggger than any fortune in front of myself, all the way before. But I didn;t realized so much things that were noted in Malaysia local fim scene history was happened around this particular area.

Ulu Klang,Setapak and Gombak, where the FINAS was built, P. Ramlee was lived (Taman P.Ramlee in Setapak as well as P.Ramlee Memorial Library) and other places which think you should be able to noticed, were all of my places where I grew up.But No, it’s not something that I proud of. I shall say I am the most stupid person by choosing things that were supposed to be “choose” at first place. But being stupid or the most stupid is not the issue.Is not what the decision that determine your stupdiness, but what are the output and outcomes, is the most important thing.But I also believed the theory applies to different things with different situation that must be consider. Procedures is better than results. Guess what? I got that from Winter Sonata, a love story from Korea. Yes, the love story is interesting but I don’t follow that much..And don’t even start with me! Heheh…just kidding. But from that you get the ideas of this – People see things that they only want to see as much as what they want to hear. Hmnnnn…. just imagine how TV can gave impact so much with different kind of ideas,philosophies and even your decision in life.

Take Care..

Ridhzuan

Want to be a genius? Just practise

WHAT do The Beatles, Warren Buffett, David Beckham, Mokhtar Dahari and Bill Gates have in common? They’re all famous, they’re all gifted, and they’re all geniuses in their own realms. More importantly, they have all reached the top by doing one thing – they poured their hearts and souls, their blood, sweat and tears, into achieving “perfection” through lots of practice.

Thomas Alva Edison once said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Based on their research, Anders Ericsson and a team of scientists claim to know just how much perspiration is required to become a genius – apparently 10 years or 10,000 hours.

Ericsson writes, “A lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with. But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it.”

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell reinforces this point with evidence that geniuses simply become great through practice.

The Beatles remain the best-selling musical group of all time, but this success did not come overnight. Gladwell explains that the Beatles became so good because they played for hours and hours in the German underground scene in Hamburg, receiving little money or recognition.

According to John Lennon, they played eight hours per night, seven nights a week for 270 nights. In comparison, most bands of their time (and probably even now!) only performed one-hour sessions every week.

Fortunately for the Fab Four, by the time they were ‘discovered’, they had performed an estimated of 1,200 times! Most bands today don’t even perform that many times in their entire careers. These 1,200 live practice performances really was the differentiator.

Buffett is widely recognised as the world’s greatest investor. But his success is the result of sheer discipline, hard work and lots of practice. He practised the discipline of “mental strategies” of investment for years and years, and became an expert in investments over time.

Beckham is no different. Famed for his lethal free kicks, he wasn’t born with those skills. He practised free kicks diligently to impress his dad at first and developed it into his trademark.

Said his former boss, Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, “He practised with a discipline to achieve an accuracy that other players wouldn’t care about.” After the usual practice session, Beckham would stay back and continue practising and practising – 500 free kicks a day, 180,000 free kicks a year.

That effort soon translated into an ability and talent that we called genius.

We know that Gates, a Harvard dropout, is among the world’s richest men because of his Microsoft fortune. But there is more to his story than meets the eye.

For starters, he went to an elite high school, with access to a computer. This was back in the 1960s, when many universities didn’t even have computers. This allowed him to do real-time programming as a 14-year-old.

Obsessed, he programmed eight hours a day, seven days a week. He skipped athletics, sneaked out after bedtime, hacked passwords, and told the occasional lie, just so that he could have more hours of programming. By the time he dropped out of college, he had 10,000 programming hours under his belt.

Think of teenagers who are computer whiz-kids. How do they become experts? With their short attention span, how do they learn? Observe them for a day and you will see them surfing the Internet, playing video games, and sharing everything they learn on blogs and YouTube.

Considering the hours they spend daily on the computer, it’s no wonder that they are so good with all things digital. Clearly, there is a correlation between time and expertise.

Greatness is only achieved through hard, painful, and demanding practice. “It can take 10 years or 10,000 hours of extensive practice to excel in anything,” says George Kohlrieser, the head of leadership at business school IMD.

“Mozart was six when he started composing, but his world-class compositions started at age 21.” Kohlrieser believes that talent and luck are important, but it is practice that makes the difference between being good and being great. So what does this all mean? We live in a world where we expect everything to be instantaneous. Maggi Mee, instant coffee, instant profits, and we even produce leaders by using the 1-Minute Manager manual.

Yet, to be truly exceptional and great, we need to put in the time. We expect world-class football players in Malaysia, and yet we start formal football training for kids at age 12, when teams like Everton start developing their Wayne Rooneys at age 4. And we wonder why we don’t see football geniuses?

There are no shortcuts. We can conclude likewise on leadership. Nobody becomes a great leader without working at it. To develop leaders, we need to provide our future leaders with early exposure and practice to leadership, possibly even in their schooling years. Why aren’t there leadership clubs in our schools that enable our kids to practice leadership?

There is a belief that if you’re good at something, it should be effortless. That unfortunately is baseless. To become a great leader, you need to notch up hours of practise. Even Jack Welch spent 10 years as CEO of General Electric, practising and practising before he finally got it right.

If you do the math, just three hours a day of practice for 10 years makes you an expert.

Just one problem: How do you practice business? Many elements of business, in fact, are directly practicable. Presenting, negotiating, delivering evaluations, deciphering financial statements – you can practise them all. And even the softer pieces of management, such as giving feedback on performance, coaching your reports and hiring the right people can all be practised.

I played football under the great Mokhtar Dahari. He was an intense coach, always pushing us to the limit during our training sessions. One day I asked him about the goal he scored against England. He replied, “I guess I was just lucky.” Then he said, “But, Roshan, you make your own luck. The more you practise, the luckier you get. So stop asking questions and keep practising.” I took his advice and before long, I broke into the state team.

Roberto Galeotti, president of Scoula Superiore, once said, “Genius is NOT reserved for the special few”. Then again, practice is never easy. If achieving great performance was so easy, it wouldn’t be rare. So, you want to be brilliant or a genius, just practice la. Hopefully, you have 10,000 hours to spare!

Roshan Thiran – The Star

           It’s been a 5 years now since he has subscript to Metastock, a software programme that compiles all data from as long as 10 years back of the company daily,monthly and yearly shares perfomance chart.Now I get the ideas why technical analysis can get so exciting – by distributing a single line from the graph peakand analyze the moving of it, you can determine when will the shares will goes in maximum before its going down in a few month like you wish you should’ve sell it earlier before the your share prices can fall almost 80 % of your buying prices.It’s all a risk management skills and some novice will have to get a remisier to consult them before moving with any decisions.Some people might think it’s nonesense – why do invest in shares after knowing all thsese ridiculous fact?.

         Put it this way, a car driver has a same lesson taught in all over the world. Reds means stop,green means it’s a right to move on. All remisiers,stockholders,investment firms and any related people learns the same things and act upon it. The moving averages of the shares market perfomance graph is being watched by millions of people and when the red lights is flashing out after a few moment of alert, everyone will move to the same decisions.Other things that definitely take into consideration is rumours or newsflash about anything which consider positive or negative feedback from the current situation.To conclude it, the same colors of traffic lights and its basic rules were implemented everywhere and considered a global knowledge and thus, turns out to be a simultanoues reaction by any person at his different places at any time. In shares markets, the whole things is surprisingly, the same concept with the traffics lights lesson.

        Why you should read further? If you get what I mean, the drops of shares price of highly anticipated NYSE stock exchange like Microsoft,ExxonMobil,Citibank and etc, should gaves us the ideas of putting a few of our money for investment. Why? Just like the nature calls, everything’s down must go up. if it’s not in near or short moment to get back the profit, it must be rises and just like any oher investment, it takes time to tango.

       To strenghten my points there, please surf to this link Daily Wealth. Maybe this is the right time to have some faith on this share markets since they were not many times like now happens and this is where the bg boys got to earn their big bucks by selling their shares and gaining profits 5th time more than doing conventional business or your employee fund contribution. How often wars can happen and the big boys got the big cash just trading the Kuwait dinar into foreign exchange. Hmnnn… it’s tax free. Better think about it    I might get enough money to start a life with my wife to be… Stop, i need to find girl first…

Ridhzuan Harun

Employee Retention – Critical Skill at a Critical Time

          Many of you have probably heard about the “pending” labor shortage. The Herman Group predicts that by 2010, there will be a shortage of over 10 million employees in the U.S. This is not a problem that will magically appear in 5 years. The problem is NOW!!

         We are currently in the tightest labor market of the past 40 years. Data already suggests we have a shortage of almost 5 million employees. Much of this is due to the impact of the 20% drop in birth rate we saw after the Baby Boomer generation. At the same time these Baby Boomers begin to retire, fewer people are entering the job force. Unemployment rates are at their lowest levels since early 2001 and they will only get lower.

         If you haven’t given this problem much thought, you’re not alone. Most companies have been lulled to sleep by the up and down economy and fickle job market of the last few years. That’s great news for those of you reading this because the few companies who understand the importance of this problem, and proactively do something about it, will gain incredible competitive advantage.

The Impact

You will feel this impact in two ways

1. Increased employee turnover

According to the Gallop organization, only 29% of employees are truly engaged in the work they do. That means 71% of your employees would probably not think twice before leaving for a better (or maybe just different) opportunity. At the same time, the current positive state of the economy, low unemployment rate and flexible work arrangements have given employees more choices than ever before.? And, by the way, your best employees have the most choices, and therefore more reason to leave! Think about the impact that would have on your customers, employee morale, hiring costs, training and number of non-gray hairs on your head

If you haven’t begun to see this problem in your organization, you will. If you don’t tackle this problem today, you will pay dearly to solve it tomorrow

2. Increased difficulty in recruiting

Some of you may have already experienced the increased time it takes to find qualified employees. Two years ago, a job candidate was happy to have one good job opportunity. Today, most good job candidates have several opportunities to choose from.

This will cause two types of problems: either your company will be understaffed as you wait longer to fill those open spots, or you’ll rush to fill open spots by settling for employees that are not really qualified for the job.
The Solution

So how do you weather this storm?

What follows are eight ways to dramatically increase the chances of keeping and maximizing your best employees.

1.Hire the right people

The first step for any company hoping to become great is to hire superior people.? “A” players breed more “A” players. Companies filled with “B” and “C” employees will not have the ability to attract “A” players. In addition, the “A” players you do have will be de-motivated and/or leave. ?
Research has shown that companies mis-hire 75% of the time! That means most companies need to hire four mediocre or under-performing employees in order to find one “A” player. The cost of this poor performance is astounding when you estimate the impact on company performance and/or employee turnover costs.?
Therefore, the first step in your retention process should be to improve your hiring process. You will need to develop a system for recruiting, evaluating and hiring superior people. This is an extensive topic unto itself, which has spawned hundreds of books. I suggest you read “Hire With Your Head” by Lou Adler or “Topgrading” by Bradford Smart as a great starting point.

2.Know your employees

Do you adhere to the adage that all employees should be treated equally? If so, your employees will never achieve their true potential, and never be truly happy in their work. ?

Each one of your employees has different strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, goals, motivations and learning styles. By understanding and acting on these differences you will be able to bring the best out of your team.

Let’s look at an example concerning motivations&ldots;

One employee is motivated by money and/or status while the second employee is motivated by free-time and flexibility.? Should both be offered the same type of work incentives? Of course not

Let’s look at one more example. This time concerning learning styles…

Some employees learn best by studying everything there is to know about task before trying it. Forcing them to begin a task before they’re ready will result in poor execution and diminished confidence. Other employees like to learn by doing. They like to understand the basics of the task and then be “let loose” to learn from their mistakes. Studying the details of a task for too long only bores and de-motivates them.? Would you train these different types of employees in the same manner?? I hope not.

The sad thing is that most managers don’t know their employees well enough to understand these differences. If that’s the case in your situation, the first step is incredibly easy. Just ask them. Ask them what they like and dislike about the job. Ask them what motivates them and how they like to learn best. Not only will you find out an incredible amount of useful information, you’ll also show them how much you care.

3.Focus on employee strengths

When creating and giving employee evaluations, how much time do you spend on strengths versus weaknesses? If you’re like most managers, you rack your brain to find every possible weakness and development need for the employee you’re evaluating. I remember having a hard time writing reviews for my best performers since it was more difficult to find areas of weakness. Telling them where they were doing a great job was almost an afterthought and not much more than a pat on the back.

Focusing on weaknesses might help an employee become a bit more “well rounded”, however, being “well rounded” is incredibly overrated.? Employees will rarely become strong in an area of weakness. The best we can hope for is that they will rise to become mediocre. However, where an employee has talent, they can become world-class.? In addition, focusing on maximizing those areas where we have true talent is incredibly motivating.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore weaknesses. By all means, if weaknesses are getting in the way of doing the job, you need to find ways to manage around those weaknesses. These can include looking for ways to get them to acceptable levels of performance, changing their responsibilities or counseling them out of your organization. But don’t expect them to become “expert” tomorrow in those areas they’re weak in today.

Your return on investment will be significantly greater by focusing the employee’s efforts on continuing to build on their talents by adding new knowledge, experience and tools. Would you rather have a “well rounded” employee or a world-class employee??

4.Create a compelling mission

I’m not talking here about your typical mission statement, created by high level executives during a 2-day retreat. I’m talking about something your employees feel in their gut. Something that makes them believe their work is important. ?Something that gives them pride in what they do

If you work for a brokerage firm, wouldn’t it be more powerful to state your mission as “We help our clients provide for their children and live comfortably into their old age” than to say “We will be the leading brokerage firm in our industry”. If your company makes smoke alarms, wouldn’t it be more powerful to have a mission to keep families safe instead of a mission to be the #1 provider of smoke alarms.

Think about what makes your work important and make that your mission.

5.Trust your people

Conventional management wisdom says you’ll get the most out of your employees by defining specific goals and detailed procedures for getting there. This is only half right. Creating challenging goals is critical, however, let your employees figure out how to get there.

Most of us know it’s the people on the front lines who truly understand the best way to get things done. Defining every detailed procedure for them not only stifles their motivation and creativity, but also lowers the chance they’ll create break-thru performance.

If you’ve hired the right people and given them the tools necessary to do the job, you should give them the freedom to get the job done. Giving them ownership will allow them to reach their true potential.

6.Show your appreciation

There’s a reason why teams play better in front of a home town crowd. There’s a reason why stand up comics feed off the laughter of the crowd. Appreciation works!

Find ways to measure and reward positive outcomes. Compliment and celebrate your teams’ accomplishments big and small. There’s no such thing as too much praise as long as it’s genuine.

7.Cultivate strong managers

Research shows that employees leave their managers, not the companies they work for. It does no good for a company to invest in great compensation plans, mission statements and performance management systems if front line managers can’t execute against the previous six ideas.

Simply put, managers need to know how to effectively select, manage, develop and reward their employees. Missing any one these pieces will lead to poor performance and high employee turnover.

Therefore, a company’s biggest investment should be in the selection and development of great managers.

8.Have fun!

We spend half our waking lives at work. Shouldn’t we figure out how to make it fun? ?Not only will a fun work environment breed happier employees, it’ll breed creativity, outstanding service and tremendous teamwork.

Allow your employees to play, have fun and experiment. Encourage them to contribute to others (employees, customers and the community) in extraordinary ways. Most of all loosen up. Let people bring their true selves to work and have a good time. Your customers, employees and bottom-line will be better for it.

Following these eight steps will actually do a great deal more than help you keep your best employees. Happier, more productive employees will lead to improved innovation, quality, customer service and, best of all, profitability.

Considered the biggest rescue of the bank,U.S government has planning to inject $20 Billion of a new capital by agreeing to shoulder most of the potential losses on $306 billion high risk assets.The current economic crisis has seen the disapperance of major financial companies such as Lehman Brothers,Bear Sterns Cos and Washington Mutual Inc.American Express, one of the major charge card issuing company,has been planning to lower the widening financial rise if their own by cutting apporoximately 7000 jobs at the management level with their aim to save around $1.8 Billion next year, according to CNN Money.Known for their generous of concern to their customers,the Amex public image will be more likely to change after some adjustment of strictening some regulations and higher financial charges.As such, it is more likely from our observation that the employment new hires will be paused and employee salary will have no usual annual increment and bonus.

Stock market moved sharply higher for a another straight session last Monday and the Market watchers reacted cautiously to the rally.By the mean time, to acknowledge that stocks had been beaten down so badly in last week’s fear-driven sell-off that any rebound was likely to be strong and more likely after the good news from Obama promises to boost the economy.At least, this good news makes people feel relief that something is being done.Under the rescue plan, the government agreed to invest an additional $20 billion in Citigroup, on top of $25 billion previously committed. It also agreed to absorb the first $29 billion in the present losses of a portfolio of $306 billion troubled assets.In addition, the government would shoulder 90% of any additional write-downs, with Citigroup takeover for the other 10%.

Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and other top management may found a new experience “in keeping their job” despite the intervention, but its the government that have the decision their future. More details on compensation may come next week, government officials said.
Not all investors were pleased. “You’re seeing an inept management team being rewarded by the U.S. government,” said William Smith, chief executive of Smith Asset Management in New York, which owns Citigroup stock.

Ridhzuan Harun