Blog again! Wow!

What triggered it? A small issue, but interesting nonetheless. Love Matters and The Wedding Game are being released at the same time.

Both of them are local productions, which means that they are aimed almost exclusively at the Singapore market (and perhaps trickling over to JB). Now, anyone who thinks that movies are released whenever they are completed must be dreaming. Release times are planned strategically, because you don't want to be competing with another blockbuster (or another movie of the same grade as your own).

Even big hits adhere to this. Transformers isn't going to be released at the same time as Spiderman 3 if they can help it. Movie producers plan their release to maximize their profits; no profit in competing.

The only plausible reason is this; the range of movies from Hollywood is minimal, considering that most studios would have dumped their best fare during the Christmas season. CNY is the main reason, since Hollywood doesn't recognize this, it is up to the local producers to provide for the festive season.

So, very interesting indeed.

Next one was on my mind for some time already. What if you had a 5% discount to everything you bought? Sounds cool right? And you could have it for almost nothing. It's a benefit.

Yep, that's credit cards for ya. Getting everything for cheaper.

It's no secret that I'm an opponent of credit cards. For a number of reasons:

1) There should be little reason to spend money that you do not have. The only times when you should borrow should be for investment purposes and for large purchases like houses and cars which make it very unrealistic for you not to borrow.

2) You should be consuming with past resources, not future (ie, spending money you saved in the past) in order to be financially sound.

3) Retail stores PAY to make it easier for you to spend. Marketing campaigns, promotions, discounts, advertising, all these are costs which the retail industry happily bears so that you will spend now. Now, instead, you are paying for the exact same effect (the annual fee of the card possibly, or the interest on your card payment).

4) If you are single and cannot make do with a 2k+ salary a month without borrowing, then you are either in deep shit, have hefty study loans to service or a family to support. I hope it isn't the first one for you.

5) It is already so easy to spend money; we all should be finding ways to disincentivize consuming instead.

I wanna elaborate on the last point. There was this website where smokers could sign a contract to pay a monetary penalty each time they smoked a cigarette, having already declared that they will attempt to kick the habit. Of course, it is a difficult contract to enforce, and rely almost entirely on personal honesty and integrity.

The point is, there is very little incentive to stop smoking; heck, its easy to pick up another cigarette, so one way was for people to voluntarily place some penalty on themselves in order to make up for the lack of self-discipline.

Now to spending. When I say spend, I mean consuming, which is to purchase anything which you do not expect to recover the cost of it in the future. Do we really need another reason to spend? How about a reason not to spend? Spending is so easy; as long as you have the cash you are constantly and continually bombarded with temptations to fork out the dough for something which you may not really need. That's why saving is so difficult; the process of saving means you have to constantly contend with that temptation.

Banks do not want you to save. Oh no, they earn alot more from your credit card debt than from the spread they earn from lending your money out. That's why they make it so easy for you to incur debt. I bet if there wasn't any regulation on the minimum income for credit cards the banks will not impose any. So I see people applying for cards "because of all the discounts".

Now here's the catch. Discounts are meant to save you money; but do you really think that with all these discounts you'll end up saving more or spending more? For the sake of being naggy; we need incentives to save, not spend. Let others stimulate the economy; someone's gonna do it anyway, why should it be you? No one's gonna be giving you a prize for spending much; heck, no one's gonna know, and you ain't gonna get that fuzzy feeling for having saved the economy even.

The other day, I was checking up on how to file tax returns, one of the things you have to learn when coping with adulthood. I found out: tax relief for life insurance? Really? I mean, the government believes that life insurance should be encouraged? I think I'm definitely missing out something here, since I've all along been against life insurance.

Don't get me wrong; I love insurance. Insurance is a way of hedging against life's unexpected surprises. I'll gladly pay to get covered for anything untoward that may happen to me so that I have some funds to rely on, or for my loved ones to use.

It is the investment aspect which I think really sucks. The returns are so poor, yet it is not easy for anyone to make comparisons simply because its combined with actuarial figures. If the actuary tells me that, given my age, health, lifestyle and family history I have to pay X premium to get Y coverage, I'll take it since actuarial science isn't an easy thing to master.

But when you lump it together with an investment proposition, it gets all hazy and difficult to track. Somewhere, somehow, I believe that if I took a regular policy and saved the remainder and did something else with that money, I'll end up more.

Someday I'll prove this theory, but until then I believe I shouldn't be too wrong about this.