IMF Standby Facility - Update 1

I've taken it upon myself to keep myself updated on a day to day basis on the negotiated IMF bailout of 2 Billion dollars. Most of this would be copy/paste + some of my concerns and observations. I beleive we should all be aware of the implications of taking money from the IMF, some of which i hope to write in future posts, in this regard i greatly appreciate some of the statements made by the president that we will not be selling off our national treasures in the process. The President playing hard ball is good. But is this just an act? or is it a genuine attempt that is hopelessly out of place given our reserves position?? we will find out in time.

Transcript of a Press Briefing by David Hawley, Senior Advisor, External Relations Department, International Monetary Fund - imf.org

QUESTION: I wanted to know what you can say about the conditions—the IMF may be considering on the loan to Sri Lanka, a nearly $2 billion loan and there's some discussion of whether they could use it to support the rupee. I also wanted to know whether there's any consideration by the IMF how funds are using given the current military conflict in the country.

MR. HAWLEY: Thank you. Discussions are still ongoing with Sri Lanka and are expected to continue over the next few weeks. They're focused on achieving the government's—in order words, Sri Lanka's policy goals which include rebuilding reserves, reducing the budget deficit and bringing about balance of payment sustainability.

QUESTION: I guess maybe this is kind of a naïve question, but in countries that are involved in—at the U.N. where I usually report from they had a Security Council meeting about the conflict and humanitarian effects of it. What sort of follow through or restrictions are placed such that it isn't—since money is fungible is not used for—or of support to military action?

MR. HAWLEY: I'm sorry. I haven't understood the question.

QUESTION: Since the country is involved currently in a military offensive in the northern part of the country that's given rise to at least one briefing at the U.N. Security Council, what provisions are in place to make sure that such a loan doesn't indirectly simply support military action?

MR. HAWLEY: Let me say—let me repeat what I just said. Our discussion are still ongoing with the Sri Lankan authorities on a possible program, so let us wait for the outcome of those discussions. Thank you very much—and because you were a late arrival, it's 10:30. Thanks a lot.

Beer Saturday

7 am and working on Red Bull assignment

Walking down main street Fort, blistering hot sun…

Gorgeous girl passes by leaving a fresh scent of perfume, I smell the Air…. Can you blame me?

JP & sons, buying a Spinning Reel and Rod for Sana…. Fuck! The throw net is only 2500 Rupees!

Mutton rolls from Barista, horseshit probably taste better! The bastards…..

101 Marotuwa toots his horn! Moron… packing the Cooler with Beer is somehow more fun than actually consuming it…. Like taking a girl’s shirt off, anticipation…..

Life deals a terrible hand to some…. God, how blessed I am…. ‘’one more for my brother please…’’ the poor boy cries out, 2 mutton rolls obviously not enough….

Indian imports are taking over & the Indo Lanka FTA clearly favors them. I’m reminded of this by how the very fabric of society has been taken over by ‘’Made in India’’. A picture worth a thousand words…….. Indian Bikes!

Fisherman’s Villa the sign read… I found myself in the kitchen of a Canadian Sri Lankan’s holiday home in Wadduwa…. Golf Cart, Pool, Basketball court, beach buggy, got the wrong place of course!

The fisherman’s Villa was gorgeous. The sandy floor of its open restaurant was comfortable on my oversized feet.

Freddy the German with a tattoo of ‘Sri Lanka’ and ‘Freddy’ in Sinhalese on his chest made me believe the UNP was conspiring with unseen German forces, the tattoo of an elephant below his right nipple clearly the cause.

Freddy poked his 2 cents and got a couple of shots of rum for his trouble. Amicable dude he was. This bloke was more patriotic about Sri Lanka than some Sri Lankan people know. ‘Shri Lanka Matha’ and all…… and even knew who Freddy Silva was….

Choppy waters, no fish, 2 bottle of rum and 18 bottles of beer

120 kmph down Galle road, Mr. Martinus clearly taken up by the ‘Go Kimi’ comments thrown at him, an inability to scent sarcasm can twist a mans mind into reckless driving I found out….

7 pm and working on Red Bull assignment

Media and the GSP+ Madness

I'm a little ticked off right now! some of you may prove me wrong and bring forth some proof documents and reports. But it doesn't really matter. I expect the media who keeps shouting about almost everything in this country (to their credit) to stop growing balls and grow a bit of brains. Harsh. Yes. But does it matter?

They can report so many things of such national importance day long like the Cricketers being the victims of a terrorist attack, the abduction of a little girl, the death of LW, how Mr. Ceylinco seems to have fucked everyone and how a little girl just died of a vaccination in Matara. But please explain how it is possible that i can't find a single article written about Minister Rohitha Bogallagama's visit to the EC (European commission) in late Jan, early Feb.

Let me illustrate why this fucking meeting was so important.
I'll let the data do the talking first.

SL Apparel Exports $Million
2003
EU - 777
US-1470

2004
EU - 985
US - 1539

2005
EU - 1014
US - 1633

2006
EU - 1153
US - 1630

2007
EU - 1448
US - 1595

2008
EU - 1604
US - 1508

Garment exports to the EU have grown by 106% since 2003. $827 Million. About 3% of our GDP. All this in just 6 years. More than 200,000 people work in the industry. Many of whom are sometimes the only bread winner of the family like myself. yeah, I'm the king of my castle now baby. Mom's retired and siblings are married. So, i take care of things at home.

Forget me, there are thousands of innocent village girls who carry the burden of feeding an entire family. sending their brothers and sisters to school and making sure their ailing parents get proper medical attention.

I guess the media does not find people dying of Hunger as report worthy as much as soldiers dying in machine gun fire or journalists being slain on the streets. Fuck y'all.

I had to search the net, read papers, call friends for a good 2 days to just be sure he went on the trip. let alone what the outcome of such a nationally important meeting was.

Where the Fuck was the media then?? i think y'all are just another bunch of biased imbeciles who will report anything that will sell you more papers.

Finally, after 2 days of trying to know if somawathi will have a job to feed her triplets who don't have a father who was reported missing in action, this is where i got to know the Hon. Minister even made the journey. Nope, couldn't find anything on any online local newspapers. I had to bloody crawl into a EU website of some sort to find out. No body seems to know either. This is a state of apathy of a new form. Economic apathy. Fuck the IMF bailout. If we focused on keeping the pressure on the politicians to own up to the 27 international conventions required to gain the GSP+ scheme, we wouldn't be needing constant bailouts. We'll have enough reserves flowing in from the EU Godammit!!! but, with the way things are going. You can bet arse that we might need another bailout sometime in the distant future. Trading our values resources like trinco, pilawoos and majestic city in return.

So... after all this. What happened at this meeting??
i dun fucking know!!

So special thanks to the Media for being on the ball.

Bad Day!

No not the song, accidentally deleted my Blogroll.....
The last 5 minutes have been painful trying to re-establish what seems to be an ocean of shit i like to read, (Shit can be used in the context of ''Good'' by me, hence the statement... ''Good shit'')

Brings me the point of realizing how much we depend on electronic databases...
Numbers on a phone
E mail contact list
ur blog
blogroll
hard disk... years of music, data
internet explorer favourites, ever formatted ur PC and come back to find out that ur 79 fav's are missing.... much of which u don't remember....??

**Fuck it, the machines are already waging a Cold war on humanity**

The best part is we don't even see it coming! Ring the bell's ya morons! this is a state of emergency.... Let's not leave it to Neo, let's screw the machines over with our own counter insurgency.....

Pencils
paper
Glue
typewriters
ink

Bring out the Armoury!!!! **Mel Gibson tone in Braveheart when he screamed his testicals off''

To you who stand with me on this day..... as a brother in battle against these ruthless machines you will forever be with me in paradise where i swear to share half of the virgins waiting on me!!!

Off to manually back up my phone numbers on my planner.....

Based on the Whacksters first comment on this post, i am willing to throw in an extra virgin in paradise to anyone who can come up with a way of manufacturing pencils, paper, glue etc. without the use of any machines..... May God be with you in this great cause!!

Democracy

Just read Indi’s post here. I must say its one of the most interesting posts I’ve read in sometime. A tone which transcended the usual attempt to baptize others by force into your own ideologies and in all accounts inspiring at a time when I’ve been reading up on some Latin American countries.

When I look at countries like Venezuela & El Salvador I’m inspired by the sheer magnitude of the ‘’people power’’ prevailing in these countries. Western media often tries to tarnish the ‘’Democracies’’ established in these countries, established at the cost of multinationals who controlled the resources of these countries prior to the establishment of the Chavez government for example. Such is the rich/poor divide in Venezuela that nationalizing the oil companies was the only way to bring about a more equitable society as it amounts to 90% of its export revenue and rid its lands from social injustice served to the weak and poor.

Like Indi mentioned, a democracy is only a democracy if the citizens in it chooses to act on their beliefs which goes beyond merely giving lip service. Apathy has no place in such a system.

In 2002 I believe, Chavez was overthrown in a coup. Within 2 days he was back in office. Simply because people chose to do just what they are suppose to do in a democracy. They took to the streets, laughed, waved flags, cheered each other on and in a epic moment of defiance surrounded the presidential palace in their hundreds of thousands to overthrow the people who orchestrated throwing of the ‘’Democratically’’ elected Chavez out. It was in a certain way sad; I wanted to see the same kind of passion in Sri Lanka. A time when the power certainly does rest with the people, when our leaders will not take for granted the power given to them by the people because the people choose not to be ignorant and cynical about the country and are proactive that power brokers would dare not abuse that hallowed obligation to represent the people.

I love this country. I pray that the masses would awaken. But I also understand that I can do far more to quench my own thirst in seeing this country prosper, I now understand that I am obligated to be a stakeholder in something much greater than satisfying my own mediocre dreams which would give me greater satisfaction and pride.

Jayawewa!!

I wonder what our Ministers go through just to get that perfect image for their campaigns. Bloody hell it must keep them up all night, thinking about how the perfect image would get them rolling into parliament. Spare some thought for the poor photographer, this is inherently a pretty shitty job.

Moddaaayaaaa!! Harako….! Kiwwa neda hariyata ganing kiyala……

And imagine how you need the perfect timing to have the president smile, at the perfect angle capturing your rosy face with a fake smile that you find hard to hold constantly coz your left cheek hurts like the butt cheek of a cute prisoner at Welikada. Screw national geographic capturing images of a frog caught mating with a preying mantis at such at an acute angle that the camera had to be virtually stuck between the poor frog’s legs. This task must be harder. And the president usually has so many people around him wanting to be caught on Camera ministers must be wondering.

AiiyoooooOOOO!!…… mooth ennawane methanama **** denna……….

And the screening process itself must be quite amusing I think. Imagine the opposition leader or any other politician going.

Chi….. meke tatte penawa
Apo, behe behe…. Tharahen wage…. Chhoooty lamai baya vei!

And then Eureka!!!

Ahhhhh…. Meka hodai…. Lassanta innawa…… Mage Bicep ekath penawa…..
Ela ela…..

The Pursuit of Truth, Justice and an equitable World

Here we are in this myriad of democracies
Tainted peace fashioned by bloodshed
The cries of the hungry not fed by the free market
Blinded? a fake illusion? Tell me Mr. Friedman?

‘’You shall see the truth and the truth shall set you free’’ – JC

The past couple of weeks have been an absolute eye opener to say the least. I’ve often read & learnt stuff that have completely changed my perspective about how the world works and the mediocre part we tend to play in it quite often.

For example, my fascination at Calculus at college! The secret ‘’WTF????’’ to my self at the time was in response to finding out how E=1/2MV2 can be derived through integration, and given that so many things are just the bloody result of this subject I thought I’d seen it all! It’s fucking Calculus that makes the world spin not ‘’Love’’ you faggots!! I told myself.

Example 2, reading rich dad poor dad! By Robert Kiosaki was it?
This book encapsulated something I’ve been waiting to hear in some subject at school or whilst doing my UG all in less than 300 pages of bewildering revelation of what has been right beneath my nose so to so to speak all this while. Every kid who dreams of driving his own BMW convertible ought to read this, the Wall street journal called this a must read for all millionaires. What it really does do is grab you out of the box, rid you of functional fixedness and teaches you to look at wealth accumulation in a totally new way, it’s an obvious revelation but its power is not to be underestimated if taken seriously.

Economics! Long years were spent in school laboring to grab a hold of Physics, Chemistry and math. And then Mr. Bora taught us Economics……. I now ask the vendor the price of 250 grams of tomatoes and grumble, my tongue unknowingly slandering one Mr. Cabraals unsuspecting mother. Enough said about econ I believe.

The latest revelation is centered on a series of books, videos and movies. Nope, can’t and not really in a mood to type the new found truth. Instead, just gonna list the things I’ve been going through. What it did was make me think twice about putting on my Nike sneakers on a weekend and Bite into em Big Mac’s and dream about naked Hawaiian women mud wrestling shouting….. ‘’Allooooohaaaaaaa!!’’

WTF??? (** what the fuck is wrong wit me I ask myself reading the last sentence**)

Confessions of an economic Hitman – John Perkins
Shock Therapy – Naomi Klein
A series of youtube videos on Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, and Keynesian economics, coupled with ‘’War Democracy’’ the documentary.

Shit Happens!

DEPEND

Incontinence
Fecal incontinence is the loss of regular control of the bowels. Involuntary excretion and leaking are common occurrences for those affected

Urinary incontinence (UI) is any involuntary leakage of urine. It is a common and distressing problem, which may have a profound impact on quality of life. Urinary incontinence almost always results from an underlying treatable medical condition.

Watch Your Diet = enough water, avoid caffeine, alcohol, tomato based products and grapefruit juice.
Watch Your Weight = intra abdominal pressure.
Keep Active = A positive attitude and activity has a severe impact on incontinence doctors have found.
Understand Available Treatments = Bladder Restraining, Medication to surgery!

But what if none of these works?
There was no solution to this problem until 1984 when Kimberley Clark came up with Depends adult diapers.

COMMERCIAL

In doing so capitalized on a huge market segment which consisted of 19million people in ONLY North America representing about 6% of the American population in 2008, which is expected to grow to 27 million by 2010.

However it’s important to also note that it is not only people with incontinence problems that use this product. Bed ridden patients have found this product to be of particular importance. Catheters can be used to solve urination problems. However fecal excretion is a problem with the use of bed pans which is uncomfortable for both patient and care giver.

Due to this blue ocean created by Kimberley Clark, the group churned out a staggering 850 million dollars from Depend sales, out of total net sales of 18Billion which amounts to almost 5% of total group revenue.

HUGGIES PULL-UPS

http://books.google.lk/books?id=xlPNB5HpRDIC&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=huggies+pull+ups&source=bl&ots=rqpCytrquQ&sig=lO9J8frlVNIxEAXMrJmH9UG7e3Y&hl=en&ei=BUeySdOJNdK1kAX3ytGqBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

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Last 2 weeks, Trojan, infected laptop... no internet....
Meanwhile, these are my short notes for tommorows presentation on kimberley clark, kotex, depend and adults crapping themselves.....

God be with you.... and me......!