No, I didn’t mean I outsourced my wife’s position in the family, I wonder if that could be done at all. My wife’s MNC company have outsourced her job, which is managing customer order. The news came just before the Chinese New Year and last Friday, the whole office got the news that they will all have to leave by September. I’ve read the book, “The World is Flat”, and American’s have been outsourcing all kinds of job functions that can be outsourced. My current company also have it’s HR and pay management outsourced. In the book, the author was worried that jobs will be outsourced to India or cheaper labour countries. In my wife’s case, her job was outsourced back to America. I guess the thing is that no matter where you live or what you do, your job could go to someone else and places that you would never have dreamt of.

The Monitory Policy Committee (MPC), have recently voted to freeze the UK Mortgage to a 5.25%, citing US Economic downturn and this pushes the prospect of UK short term recovery and inflation further. This comes as a no surprise, and the US economy have been taking a beating for the few quarters. With a huge deficit the US economy is very unlikely to recover in the near future, and with it, the rest of the world’s economy. Having said this, I truly believe that MPC made the right choice. At the same time Woolwich has announced a new 10 year fix mortgage rate product, freezing the rate at 5.29%. Woolwich lauded that this is the ‘best priced’ product in the market. So, if you are looking for Mortgages, you know where to go to.. Well, the best place is Money Magic, where you can get your quotes, hassle free, without leaving your home and with no obligation. Let Money Magic do all the work for you, you just have to decide.

Got this news from Boing Boing a couple of days ago about this documentary on the collapse of the US Dollar.  According to the documentary, the collapse was a matter of ‘when’ and not a matter of ‘if’.  The documentary claim that when this happens, Asia will have a better living standard and the US’s living standard will be come like what Asia is now. Hooray, this means the Macbook will be cheaper. Currently the currency exchange for USD to Ringgit is 3.19 (today), and if the USD collapse, and lets say at par with Ringgit, then the $1099 macbook will be RM1099 (before tax). A 2/3 drop in price. This is only the Macbook, the PC will be even more affordable. This will dramatically improve the living standard of Malaysians. That was the good part, now what’s the bad part? America is the largest consumer in the world.

When the currency crash, goes into a recession and consume at a fraction of what they are today, what will happen? For one, companies with huge product inventories will be impacted. On the long term, when the consumption reduces, the need to built more also diminishes. Big Companies like Apple might not be impacted as the can continue to sustain current sales, not from US, but from the rest of the world, particularly in Asia. My friend from China used to buy Apple products in Malaysia because it was cheaper here, and now since the currency have collapse, China and the rest of Asia will see a dramatic drop in price (converted to local currency) and suddenly everyone can afford an ipod and Macbook. So, Asia will take over the consumption that the US used to have (after the currency collapse that is). Smaller companies that make entry level MP3 players that earn by selling in volume, will see a dramatic setback. Since the ipod is already affordable, who wants to buy a nobrand pod? Maybe some small companies will disappear, if they don’t re-invent themselves.

This is all good, now what is the bad? The bad news is that Asia and the rest of the world might not be able to take over all the consumption that US is doing now, and this will lead to a much smaller demand. This means, all those companies that built up manufacturing houses in developing countries, such as Asia, might close down. Asia might become too expensive as well, since the increment of standard of living and also the consumption level. This is what makes factories move out of US the first place. This means for Penang, which economy hugely dependent on American, Japanese and European factories, might see a decline, and unemployment rate in this sector will shoot up.

In summary, it may be good that the price of Macbook drops, but I may not be able to afford it also, as I might be out of job. Check out the documentary below.

I couldn’t wait and the anticipation was killing me. So, I took some risk and downloaded the nightly built and installs it. Now, I am enjoying the new interface and some of the new features. One thing to note though, is that your plugins will kill you. May of the fuctions could not work because it clashes with old versions of the plugins. So, unless you are like me, who only have the bare minimum of plugins, installing version 2.5 is something you would want to stay away. Also, this is not for the faint of heart.

For a relaxing weekend, I turn to Youtube for some entertainment and guess what I’ve found? A Chinese Guy competing in India Idol and a 3 years old korean kid singing Beatle Song ‘Hey Jude’. Isn’t this cool or what…