Tuesday July 28, 2009
Five-day Islamic finance course in KL
KUALA LUMPUR: Participants from 25 countries in the Organisation of The Islamic Conference (OIC) as well as Germany and Switzerland are attending the five-day course on the Fundamentals of Islamic Finance here.
The course, which runs till July 31, is jointly organised by Islamic Development Bank and Bank Negara.
In a statement, Bank Negara said this initiative was a capacity building programme that enhanced knowledge and expertise in Islamic finance among OIC member countries.
“The topics covered include Islamic finance operations and institutional capacity, syariah and regulatory framework for the effective implementation of a resilient Islamic financial system,” it said.
The course was officiated by Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, who delivered the opening address yesterday.
Monday, July 27, 2009
IDB anjur kursus kewangan Islam
IDB anjur kursus kewangan Islam
BANK Pembangunan Islam (IDB) dan Bank Negara Malaysia menganjurkan kursus lima hari bermula semalam mengenai asas-asas kewangan Islam.
Kursus itu adalah satu lagi usaha menjayakan program pembangunan kapasiti bagi meningkatkan pengetahuan dan kepakaran dalam kewangan Islam di kalangan negara anggota Pertubuhan Persidangan Islam (OIC), kata Bank Negara dalam kenyataannya.
Dirasmikan Gabenor Bank Negara Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, kursus itu dihadiri peserta dari 25 negara anggota OIC selain peserta dari Jerman dan Switzerland.
bank pusat itu menjelaskan, kursus dan sesi perbincangan itu berperanan sebagai platfrom pembelajaran untuk pegawai bank pusat, pegawai Kementerian Kewangan dan pengawal aturan industri sekuriti dalam meningkatkan pengetahuan dan kepakaran mereka mengenai kewangan Islam.
Tajuk dibincangkan termasuk operasi dan kapasiti institusi kewangan Islam, dan kerangka kerja pengawal aturan dan Syariah bagi pelaksanaan berkesan sistem kewangan Islam yang berdaya tahan.
Peserta, katanya berpeluang membincangkan isu kontemporari bersama pengamal industri mengenai perkembangan kewangan Islam global.
"Kursus itu juga menawarkan peluang untuk menjalin rantaian pintar di kalangan pegawai bank pusat dan pembuat dasar untuk bertukar-tukar pandangan dan peranan industri perkhidmatan kewangan Islam dalam persekitaran pasaran kewangan yang sangat mencabar ketika ini,” katanya.
Penceramah dan ahli panel terdiri daripada pegawai institusi seperti Bank Negara, Suruhanjaya Sekuriti, Pusat Antarabangsa bagi Pendidikan Kewangan Islam, Akademi Penyelidikan Syariah Antarabangsa dan Bank Islam dan Institusi Kewangan Malaysia.
BANK Pembangunan Islam (IDB) dan Bank Negara Malaysia menganjurkan kursus lima hari bermula semalam mengenai asas-asas kewangan Islam.
Kursus itu adalah satu lagi usaha menjayakan program pembangunan kapasiti bagi meningkatkan pengetahuan dan kepakaran dalam kewangan Islam di kalangan negara anggota Pertubuhan Persidangan Islam (OIC), kata Bank Negara dalam kenyataannya.
Dirasmikan Gabenor Bank Negara Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, kursus itu dihadiri peserta dari 25 negara anggota OIC selain peserta dari Jerman dan Switzerland.
bank pusat itu menjelaskan, kursus dan sesi perbincangan itu berperanan sebagai platfrom pembelajaran untuk pegawai bank pusat, pegawai Kementerian Kewangan dan pengawal aturan industri sekuriti dalam meningkatkan pengetahuan dan kepakaran mereka mengenai kewangan Islam.
Tajuk dibincangkan termasuk operasi dan kapasiti institusi kewangan Islam, dan kerangka kerja pengawal aturan dan Syariah bagi pelaksanaan berkesan sistem kewangan Islam yang berdaya tahan.
Peserta, katanya berpeluang membincangkan isu kontemporari bersama pengamal industri mengenai perkembangan kewangan Islam global.
"Kursus itu juga menawarkan peluang untuk menjalin rantaian pintar di kalangan pegawai bank pusat dan pembuat dasar untuk bertukar-tukar pandangan dan peranan industri perkhidmatan kewangan Islam dalam persekitaran pasaran kewangan yang sangat mencabar ketika ini,” katanya.
Penceramah dan ahli panel terdiri daripada pegawai institusi seperti Bank Negara, Suruhanjaya Sekuriti, Pusat Antarabangsa bagi Pendidikan Kewangan Islam, Akademi Penyelidikan Syariah Antarabangsa dan Bank Islam dan Institusi Kewangan Malaysia.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Exim Bank rancang tambah produk perbankan Islam
Exim Bank rancang tambah produk perbankan Islam
EXPORT-Import Bank of Malaysia Bhd (Exim Bank) akan memperkenalkan beberapa lagi produk perbankan Islam tahun depan sejajar usahanya memenuhi permintaan yang semakin meningkat dari pasaran Pertubuhan Persidangan Islam (OIC).
Pengarah Urusannya Mohd Fauzi Rahmat, berkata antara produk itu ialah berkaitan takaful.
“Kami merancang memperkenalkan produk takaful tahun depan bagi memenuhi permintaan bagi produk sedemikian,” katanya pada satu seminar di Kuala Lumpur, minggu lalu.
Seminar dihadiri 500 peserta terdiri daripada usahawan tempatan itu dianjurkan untuk memperkenalkan kepada peng-eksport mengenai pelbagai skim pembiayaan untuk mempromosikan produk Malaysia ke pasaran OIC.
Seminar yang dianjurkannya dengan Perbadanan Pembiayaan Perdagangan Islam Antarabangsa (ITFC), anak syarikat Bank Pembangunan Islam (IDB) itu dirasmikan Timbalan Gabenor, Datuk Zamani Abdul Ghani.
Mohd Fauzi berkata, dalam suku pertama tahun ini, Exim Bank sudah memperkenalkan beberapa produk perbankan Islam bagi memenuhi permintaan yang semakin meningkat dari pasaran OIC menerusi inisiatif bersama ITFC.
Katanya, ini termasuk IDB-Co Financing, iaitu skim yang menyediakan jaminan pembayaran dengan kedua-dua institusi pembiayaan itu berkongsi risiko jika pengimport atau peminjam tidak membuat bayaran.
Skim itu, katanya cuba menangani kebimbangan bank komersial dan pengeksport jika tidak mendapat bayaran daripada bank yang beroperasi di negara OIC yang merangkumi 81 negara dari di lima benua.
EXPORT-Import Bank of Malaysia Bhd (Exim Bank) akan memperkenalkan beberapa lagi produk perbankan Islam tahun depan sejajar usahanya memenuhi permintaan yang semakin meningkat dari pasaran Pertubuhan Persidangan Islam (OIC).
Pengarah Urusannya Mohd Fauzi Rahmat, berkata antara produk itu ialah berkaitan takaful.
“Kami merancang memperkenalkan produk takaful tahun depan bagi memenuhi permintaan bagi produk sedemikian,” katanya pada satu seminar di Kuala Lumpur, minggu lalu.
Seminar dihadiri 500 peserta terdiri daripada usahawan tempatan itu dianjurkan untuk memperkenalkan kepada peng-eksport mengenai pelbagai skim pembiayaan untuk mempromosikan produk Malaysia ke pasaran OIC.
Seminar yang dianjurkannya dengan Perbadanan Pembiayaan Perdagangan Islam Antarabangsa (ITFC), anak syarikat Bank Pembangunan Islam (IDB) itu dirasmikan Timbalan Gabenor, Datuk Zamani Abdul Ghani.
Mohd Fauzi berkata, dalam suku pertama tahun ini, Exim Bank sudah memperkenalkan beberapa produk perbankan Islam bagi memenuhi permintaan yang semakin meningkat dari pasaran OIC menerusi inisiatif bersama ITFC.
Katanya, ini termasuk IDB-Co Financing, iaitu skim yang menyediakan jaminan pembayaran dengan kedua-dua institusi pembiayaan itu berkongsi risiko jika pengimport atau peminjam tidak membuat bayaran.
Skim itu, katanya cuba menangani kebimbangan bank komersial dan pengeksport jika tidak mendapat bayaran daripada bank yang beroperasi di negara OIC yang merangkumi 81 negara dari di lima benua.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Maybank S’pore to unveil first Islamic term deposit
Friday July 17, 2009
Maybank S’pore to unveil first Islamic term deposit
SINGAPORE: Maybank Singapore will launch the first Islamic term deposit, Term Deposit-i, targeted at retail clients today.
This will make it the first bank in the island republic to offer the Islamic banking product to that market segment.
As the first mover in the market, Term Deposit-i would pay profits upfront, bucking the local trend of Islamic term deposits for high net-worth customers, the bank said in a statement.
A similar product, Profit Now Account-i, was launched by Maybank Islamic Bhd in Malaysia last May and it was well-received with more than RM1.3bil total deposits to date.
The bank said Islamic banking products were sought after by local customers scouting for alternative investment avenues with the current change in investment landscape.
The bank is offering, for a limited period, promotional rates of 0.6%, 1% and 1.4% for a tenure of three, six and 12 months respectively.
The minimum placement is S$10,000 for a 12-month tenure or a minimum of S$25,000 for three- and six-month tenures.
The bank said Term Deposit-i was based on the commodity murabahah principle, which was on a cost-plus-profit sale concept.
Under this concept, a specific syariah-compliant commodity will be identified and used as the underlying asset for the sale and purchase transaction between the customer and the bank.
The bank said since the introduction of the Islamic deposit products in 2005, it had seen an average year-on-year increase of over 40% in Islamic deposits.
This increase aligned with the global expected growth of over 40% to US$1 trillion by 2012, Maybank said.
Maybank Singapore Islamic banking head Mohd Ismail Hussein said the current market presented an opportune time to take on a back-to-basic approach.
“Consumers are on the lookout for an alternative to conventional products and this term deposit, being syariah-compliant, may well match their needs,” he said in the statement.
Ismail said Islamic banking was a fairly new concept in Singapore but was gaining momentum, including among the bank’s non-Muslim Islamic banking customers.
“With Maybank being the market leader in Islamic banking in Malaysia, the operations in Singapore is in good stead to ‘break the ice’ between Islamic banking and the local retail market,” he said. — Bernama
SINGAPORE: Maybank Singapore will launch the first Islamic term deposit, Term Deposit-i, targeted at retail clients today.
This will make it the first bank in the island republic to offer the Islamic banking product to that market segment.
As the first mover in the market, Term Deposit-i would pay profits upfront, bucking the local trend of Islamic term deposits for high net-worth customers, the bank said in a statement.
A similar product, Profit Now Account-i, was launched by Maybank Islamic Bhd in Malaysia last May and it was well-received with more than RM1.3bil total deposits to date.
The bank said Islamic banking products were sought after by local customers scouting for alternative investment avenues with the current change in investment landscape.
The bank is offering, for a limited period, promotional rates of 0.6%, 1% and 1.4% for a tenure of three, six and 12 months respectively.
The minimum placement is S$10,000 for a 12-month tenure or a minimum of S$25,000 for three- and six-month tenures.
The bank said Term Deposit-i was based on the commodity murabahah principle, which was on a cost-plus-profit sale concept.
Under this concept, a specific syariah-compliant commodity will be identified and used as the underlying asset for the sale and purchase transaction between the customer and the bank.
The bank said since the introduction of the Islamic deposit products in 2005, it had seen an average year-on-year increase of over 40% in Islamic deposits.
This increase aligned with the global expected growth of over 40% to US$1 trillion by 2012, Maybank said.
Maybank Singapore Islamic banking head Mohd Ismail Hussein said the current market presented an opportune time to take on a back-to-basic approach.
“Consumers are on the lookout for an alternative to conventional products and this term deposit, being syariah-compliant, may well match their needs,” he said in the statement.
Ismail said Islamic banking was a fairly new concept in Singapore but was gaining momentum, including among the bank’s non-Muslim Islamic banking customers.
“With Maybank being the market leader in Islamic banking in Malaysia, the operations in Singapore is in good stead to ‘break the ice’ between Islamic banking and the local retail market,” he said. — Bernama
Maybank S’pore to unveil first Islamic term deposit
SINGAPORE: Maybank Singapore will launch the first Islamic term deposit, Term Deposit-i, targeted at retail clients today.
This will make it the first bank in the island republic to offer the Islamic banking product to that market segment.
As the first mover in the market, Term Deposit-i would pay profits upfront, bucking the local trend of Islamic term deposits for high net-worth customers, the bank said in a statement.
A similar product, Profit Now Account-i, was launched by Maybank Islamic Bhd in Malaysia last May and it was well-received with more than RM1.3bil total deposits to date.
The bank said Islamic banking products were sought after by local customers scouting for alternative investment avenues with the current change in investment landscape.
The bank is offering, for a limited period, promotional rates of 0.6%, 1% and 1.4% for a tenure of three, six and 12 months respectively.
The minimum placement is S$10,000 for a 12-month tenure or a minimum of S$25,000 for three- and six-month tenures.
The bank said Term Deposit-i was based on the commodity murabahah principle, which was on a cost-plus-profit sale concept.
Under this concept, a specific syariah-compliant commodity will be identified and used as the underlying asset for the sale and purchase transaction between the customer and the bank.
The bank said since the introduction of the Islamic deposit products in 2005, it had seen an average year-on-year increase of over 40% in Islamic deposits.
This increase aligned with the global expected growth of over 40% to US$1 trillion by 2012, Maybank said.
Maybank Singapore Islamic banking head Mohd Ismail Hussein said the current market presented an opportune time to take on a back-to-basic approach.
“Consumers are on the lookout for an alternative to conventional products and this term deposit, being syariah-compliant, may well match their needs,” he said in the statement.
Ismail said Islamic banking was a fairly new concept in Singapore but was gaining momentum, including among the bank’s non-Muslim Islamic banking customers.
“With Maybank being the market leader in Islamic banking in Malaysia, the operations in Singapore is in good stead to ‘break the ice’ between Islamic banking and the local retail market,” he said. — Bernama
SINGAPORE: Maybank Singapore will launch the first Islamic term deposit, Term Deposit-i, targeted at retail clients today.
This will make it the first bank in the island republic to offer the Islamic banking product to that market segment.
As the first mover in the market, Term Deposit-i would pay profits upfront, bucking the local trend of Islamic term deposits for high net-worth customers, the bank said in a statement.
A similar product, Profit Now Account-i, was launched by Maybank Islamic Bhd in Malaysia last May and it was well-received with more than RM1.3bil total deposits to date.
The bank said Islamic banking products were sought after by local customers scouting for alternative investment avenues with the current change in investment landscape.
The bank is offering, for a limited period, promotional rates of 0.6%, 1% and 1.4% for a tenure of three, six and 12 months respectively.
The minimum placement is S$10,000 for a 12-month tenure or a minimum of S$25,000 for three- and six-month tenures.
The bank said Term Deposit-i was based on the commodity murabahah principle, which was on a cost-plus-profit sale concept.
Under this concept, a specific syariah-compliant commodity will be identified and used as the underlying asset for the sale and purchase transaction between the customer and the bank.
The bank said since the introduction of the Islamic deposit products in 2005, it had seen an average year-on-year increase of over 40% in Islamic deposits.
This increase aligned with the global expected growth of over 40% to US$1 trillion by 2012, Maybank said.
Maybank Singapore Islamic banking head Mohd Ismail Hussein said the current market presented an opportune time to take on a back-to-basic approach.
“Consumers are on the lookout for an alternative to conventional products and this term deposit, being syariah-compliant, may well match their needs,” he said in the statement.
Ismail said Islamic banking was a fairly new concept in Singapore but was gaining momentum, including among the bank’s non-Muslim Islamic banking customers.
“With Maybank being the market leader in Islamic banking in Malaysia, the operations in Singapore is in good stead to ‘break the ice’ between Islamic banking and the local retail market,” he said. — Bernama
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Gold Dinar vs US Dollar
Gold Dinar vs US Dollar
Wednesday, March 10 2004 @ 05:38 PM EST
James Sinclair - 'Monetary Jihad' will backfire IF Americans wise up
Gold Dinar" is the term for a fairly new development in international finance. It is a second prong to planned Muslim terrorist attacks on the United States, and is intended to annihilate US economic power in a world of rising gold prices and a persistently declining Dollar. With the US government making war on US citizens' liberty instead of terrorists by means of the USA Patriot Acts (versions I and II), by allowing illegal immigrants to overrun our borders unchecked while imposing ever more draconian restrictions on our people at home, by tolerating Mexican military personnel shooting at US Border Patrol agents on US soil, by doing everything to thwart US airline pilots from actually arming themselves after technically permitting them to do so, and by blowing away the US official gold and silver reserves in the name of “supporting” the US dollar, it is doubtful that our elected leaders will come up with a common-sense plan to counter the most serious threat yet to be launched by militant Muslim Jihad warriors against the United States.
Muslim nations, with Malaysia leading the pack, are quietly working on developing a banking and financial infrastructure based on a purely “Islamic” currency, the gold dinar. This system will operate in competition with the current, exclusively fiat-based, world monetary and financial system. This new pan-Islamic currency will be based on gold as the primary medium of exchange and store of value. The emergence of the gold Dinar is a dark omen for the current way in which the US is (and has been) maintaining its predominance in the world fianncial system. However, it can - much to the certain consternation of its Muslim proponents - turn into a massively backfiring gun, leaving the “Jihadis” black in the face and looking mighty stupid.
It all depends on how individual Americans respond - not on how President Bush responds, not on how Congress responds - but on the American people themselves. Let me explain. There are certain aspects of what commonly goes as “modern” economics that only few, if any, outside of the precious metals investment world are aware of, and if they are aware of it they are largely oblivious of the dire and unavoidable consequences of the world's current economic, banking, and financial system. Modern “money” is a pure legal fiction based not on what we commonly perceive as “value,” but rather on its exact opposite: it is based on nothing but debt.
A dollar bill is technically a “note.” If you look on the front of any dollar bill, you will see there printed the words “Federal Reserve Note.” In the old days, the bill said “silver certificate” or Gold certificate.” In legal terms, a note is an instrument evidencing a legal debt. So, what is a dollar “bank note” then? A piece of paper saying that the bank (issuer of the note) owes the bearer (you, if you have it in your pocket) a stated amount of “money.” In the days of the by-gone gold standard, dollar bills were convertible at will to gold or silver. A bank note of those days simply said that you, the bearer, could go to the issuing bank and demand your dollar’s worth in gold, if you so chose. The bank accordingly “owed” the gold to the bearer, and the “note” was redeemable in something generally recognized the world over as a store of value, as well as a medium of exchange - gold.
Compare that to today’s system: Your federal reserve “note” is still an instrument evidencing a debt, but because of our current, world-wide “fiat”(government decree) system of finance, the bank note itself is legislatively declared to be “legal tender.” That means everyone who has a “note” and wants to “redeem” it can do so, but all you will get in return is another note of the same type! In practical reality, this means that the note is backed by nothing but the “full faith and credit” of the United States government. Yes, you can use your note to buy stuff, and you can accept it when you sell stuff, but only because the government forces everyone in the US to accept the “note” (i.e., the evidence of money) as money itself. The problem with this system comes in from several angles:
Angle No. 1:
Internationally, your wealth is in danger under such a monetary regime when all of the debt- based fiat currency exchange rates in the world are allowed to “float” freely in the international monetary system (i.e., the exchange rate is determined by the relative demand and supply of the particular currency). Now it can happen that your government’s “money” (debt instruments) are no longer perceived as such a great credit risk by foreigners, and they sell dollars for other currencies. So your dollar drops in value relative to the other currencies of the world. That means your dollar now buys less foreign goods or services than before, i.e., imports become more expensive.
Angle No. 2:
Domestically, a pure fiat system puts your wealth in danger in either of two ways:
1) When your government decides to “just print” more money whenever its expenditures are too high. So more money goes into circulation, and your dollar buys less (because there now are more dollars “chasing” - or bidding for - the same amount of goods and services in the economy, driving up their price), and
2) When “the Fed” (your friendly federal reserve bank) decides to lower the interest rates regular banks pay for borrowing money from the Fed. That lowers their borrowing costs, which they can now pass on to their customers (you) in the form of lower interest rates. So, individuals and businesses can now afford to borrow more money, because it’s cheaper.
The way “fractional reserve banking” works in a fiat currency system is this: when banks “loan” you money, they don’t really give up anything of value. When you borrow your neighbor’s lawnmower, he foregoes the use of his lawnmower until you return it. When your grandpa borrowed gold from a bank, the bank coughed up the gold, and he had to return it, usually with interest (or the bank parted with cold, hard paper notes that represented an equal claim to gold). In our modern system, your local bank parts with precisely nothing when it loans you money. It creates a bookkeeping entry in your account that says “credit” while at the same time recording that you owe it that same amount of money in its receivables column. You can now use that money to write checks, etc., but you in contrast to the bank, you have to WORK for that money to pay it back to the bank. You give up something of value, and the bank doesn’t, but now you owe the bank interest on top of that. Thus, whenever the bank makes a loan, the domectic money supply is increased in the same amount - out of nothing. Fair deal?
Anyway, this situation (piles of debt piled onto further piles of even more debt) has created an untenable situation for the powers of international finance. The dollar, which is based on debt, was declared the international “reserve currency.” That means that dollar-denominated assets (usually Treasury bonds, another form of debt instruments) are what other countries’ central banks hold “in reserve” to back up the value of their respective (also debt-based) currencies. Debt piled on debt, piled on debt, used to “back up” even more debt. Since 1971, no country in the entire world has been allowed (under current IMF rules) to back its currency with anything other than what essentially amounts to debt. This nightmarish system has become so entrenched in our way of thinking that nobody thinks of it anymore at all - except for pro-American gold bugs ... and certain anti-American Muslims.
These Islamist Muslims have recognized that such a system is inherently vulnerable to attack, and they have figured out the best, most sure-fire means of attacking it. Their plan is to create the gold dinar as an Islamic competitor to this debt based system; a competitor that is based on real value: Gold. It is not hard to see how they could succeed with their plans. Imagine that only about half of all the Islamic countries in the world join together and form this new gold dinar system. Gold is a commodity that rich (and even poor) Muslims have hoarded for generations. They know that gold is ALWAYS accepted as a store of value and a medium of exchange, especially during emergencies when the non- Islamic world is in turmoil and undergoes heavy financial crises.
The gold dinar's primary target is the US dollar, that ultimate symbol of American wealth and economic prowess. The US dollar is already suffering internationally from the consequences of a Bill Clinton/Alan Greenspan-induced credit binge that powered the incredible economic expansion of the mid-to-late nineties through lower interest rates. But credit-induced economic expansions are always relatively short-lived, and always lead to inflation and mal-investment. A series of successive interest rate cuts in the mid-nineties caused more borrowing. In the process of borrowing, more “money” is created out of nothing and loaned into circulation. This new money normally floats around in the domestic economy, driving up prices. However, in the recent credit boom the excess money did not end up in the regular economy, driving up prices there, but served almost exclusively to further balloon an already burgeoning stock market. People loved it, because their stocks went up while prices for other “stuff” stayed low. The 1990s’ inflation happened in the stock markets, not in the goods and services sector. So everybody got high on this credit binge and people even hocked their homes to invest more money in stocks. And foreigners got in on it, sending their money to the US to participate in it all.
But now, everyone is tapped out. Stocks have been dropping for three years in a row, and the economy is teetering. Foreigners stopped sending their money to us, and the dollar’s value keeps dropping as foreigners perceive us to be “not so sterling” a credit risk any longer. Now, with the dollar being the reserve currency of the world’s central banks, if a significant number of these foreign central banks (say, half of the Islamic countries) should find a more secure, more valuable “reserve asset”, they will dump their treasury bonds and buy whatever else they think is more worthy. And the Muslims have correctly recognized that gold is worth more than debt - which is all that the US dollar is based upon. The gold Dinar 'monetary Jihad' would not be so dangerous had the US government not been so foolish as to surrepticiously agree with certain powerful bullion banks to squash the dollar-price of gold whenever it looked like it was going to go up. This was done to 'assure' Americans that it was still safe to spend like crazy and throw more money at the stock market in order to keep the artificial expansion going. In order to control the price of gold, the US Treasury, through the secretive 'Exchange Stabilization Fund' (operated entirely under the president’s executive power, wholly outside congressional oversight) backed the bullion banks’ continuous efforts to sell gold “short”, flooding the market with borrowed gold, lowering its price, and thus scaring skittish little gold investors our of their pants, causing them to sell as well.
This now has almost totally deprived the US Treasury and the Fed of the American citizens’ official gold reserves, making this country even more vulnerable to the Islamists gold dinar attack. For most of US gold has been loaned or “swapped” out. Nobody really knows how much is left - if any. So far, it all looks pretty bad for the good old USA. The official gold is (largely) gone, silver stockpiles are completely gone, the US government is hocked up to the hilt, the stock market is tanking, and the economy is lackluster due to corporate scandals and war fears. Are the "Jihadis" going to win this war against US economic supremacy? Not if Americans wake up for just a little while and pay attention. (I know, it’s hard.) While our stupid government under selfish Bill Clinton (and now under George Bush's failure to expose Clinton’s policies) blew away our official gold holdings, Americans individually now have the chance of a lifetime. If every individual American with any sense at all now goes and privately invests in gold in the same fashion in which we earlier threw money at the stock market, Americans can accomplish two things that will turn out to be the Islamists' undoing:
- They exchange something essentially worthless (paper dollars) into something of absolute value (gold), and
- they make sure that (despite foolish government policies) the US is not left out in the cold in a future world financial system where commerce is based on gold and neither the US government nor individual Americans themselves own any.
For, the great miscalculation of the Jihad-freaks lies in thinking that by giving birth to the gold Dinar, they will topple America itself. Instead, they will help cut out a cancer that has been eating away at not only America, but the entire world of the last three decades; and that cancer is a purely fiat-money, debt-based, financial system. The real question is not: will the gold dinar or the US dollar prevail? The real question is: Which of these two monetary systems will prevail: honest gold, or lying paper? What the Islamists do not understand is that the private ownership of gold, and a financial system based on gold convertibility, is the greatest guarantee of individual Liberty that has ever existed, and individual Liberty is what extremist Muslims are essentially attacking when they attack America, for their own system abhors individual liberty - especially of the religious kind.
Gold cannot be manipulated like paper can. Gold cannot be “printed” at will, and it cannot be loaned into existence, so a gold-based money supply cannot be artificially inflated. That means tHt under a gold standard, governments cannot enrich themselves by imposing the hidden tax of inflation on the people. As a result, governments lose power to the same degree in which Gold re-assumes its role as the foundation of the world financial system. And even with the few true freedoms that still exist in this country (despite the decades-long, relentless onslaught by our political and financial elites), especially when compared to the Islamic world, American industriousness, innovation, and and ingenuity will outperform the Muslim countries any day - as they have, even under a pure fiat system. That is the irony of it all. Instead of bringing America to its knees, the gold Dinar will help Americans cure their country from the fiat-currency cancer, and in the process make America stronger than ever - but this is only true IF individual Americans act now!
The fate of your country is literally in your hands
Wednesday, March 10 2004 @ 05:38 PM EST
James Sinclair - 'Monetary Jihad' will backfire IF Americans wise up
Gold Dinar" is the term for a fairly new development in international finance. It is a second prong to planned Muslim terrorist attacks on the United States, and is intended to annihilate US economic power in a world of rising gold prices and a persistently declining Dollar. With the US government making war on US citizens' liberty instead of terrorists by means of the USA Patriot Acts (versions I and II), by allowing illegal immigrants to overrun our borders unchecked while imposing ever more draconian restrictions on our people at home, by tolerating Mexican military personnel shooting at US Border Patrol agents on US soil, by doing everything to thwart US airline pilots from actually arming themselves after technically permitting them to do so, and by blowing away the US official gold and silver reserves in the name of “supporting” the US dollar, it is doubtful that our elected leaders will come up with a common-sense plan to counter the most serious threat yet to be launched by militant Muslim Jihad warriors against the United States.
Muslim nations, with Malaysia leading the pack, are quietly working on developing a banking and financial infrastructure based on a purely “Islamic” currency, the gold dinar. This system will operate in competition with the current, exclusively fiat-based, world monetary and financial system. This new pan-Islamic currency will be based on gold as the primary medium of exchange and store of value. The emergence of the gold Dinar is a dark omen for the current way in which the US is (and has been) maintaining its predominance in the world fianncial system. However, it can - much to the certain consternation of its Muslim proponents - turn into a massively backfiring gun, leaving the “Jihadis” black in the face and looking mighty stupid.
It all depends on how individual Americans respond - not on how President Bush responds, not on how Congress responds - but on the American people themselves. Let me explain. There are certain aspects of what commonly goes as “modern” economics that only few, if any, outside of the precious metals investment world are aware of, and if they are aware of it they are largely oblivious of the dire and unavoidable consequences of the world's current economic, banking, and financial system. Modern “money” is a pure legal fiction based not on what we commonly perceive as “value,” but rather on its exact opposite: it is based on nothing but debt.
A dollar bill is technically a “note.” If you look on the front of any dollar bill, you will see there printed the words “Federal Reserve Note.” In the old days, the bill said “silver certificate” or Gold certificate.” In legal terms, a note is an instrument evidencing a legal debt. So, what is a dollar “bank note” then? A piece of paper saying that the bank (issuer of the note) owes the bearer (you, if you have it in your pocket) a stated amount of “money.” In the days of the by-gone gold standard, dollar bills were convertible at will to gold or silver. A bank note of those days simply said that you, the bearer, could go to the issuing bank and demand your dollar’s worth in gold, if you so chose. The bank accordingly “owed” the gold to the bearer, and the “note” was redeemable in something generally recognized the world over as a store of value, as well as a medium of exchange - gold.
Compare that to today’s system: Your federal reserve “note” is still an instrument evidencing a debt, but because of our current, world-wide “fiat”(government decree) system of finance, the bank note itself is legislatively declared to be “legal tender.” That means everyone who has a “note” and wants to “redeem” it can do so, but all you will get in return is another note of the same type! In practical reality, this means that the note is backed by nothing but the “full faith and credit” of the United States government. Yes, you can use your note to buy stuff, and you can accept it when you sell stuff, but only because the government forces everyone in the US to accept the “note” (i.e., the evidence of money) as money itself. The problem with this system comes in from several angles:
Angle No. 1:
Internationally, your wealth is in danger under such a monetary regime when all of the debt- based fiat currency exchange rates in the world are allowed to “float” freely in the international monetary system (i.e., the exchange rate is determined by the relative demand and supply of the particular currency). Now it can happen that your government’s “money” (debt instruments) are no longer perceived as such a great credit risk by foreigners, and they sell dollars for other currencies. So your dollar drops in value relative to the other currencies of the world. That means your dollar now buys less foreign goods or services than before, i.e., imports become more expensive.
Angle No. 2:
Domestically, a pure fiat system puts your wealth in danger in either of two ways:
1) When your government decides to “just print” more money whenever its expenditures are too high. So more money goes into circulation, and your dollar buys less (because there now are more dollars “chasing” - or bidding for - the same amount of goods and services in the economy, driving up their price), and
2) When “the Fed” (your friendly federal reserve bank) decides to lower the interest rates regular banks pay for borrowing money from the Fed. That lowers their borrowing costs, which they can now pass on to their customers (you) in the form of lower interest rates. So, individuals and businesses can now afford to borrow more money, because it’s cheaper.
The way “fractional reserve banking” works in a fiat currency system is this: when banks “loan” you money, they don’t really give up anything of value. When you borrow your neighbor’s lawnmower, he foregoes the use of his lawnmower until you return it. When your grandpa borrowed gold from a bank, the bank coughed up the gold, and he had to return it, usually with interest (or the bank parted with cold, hard paper notes that represented an equal claim to gold). In our modern system, your local bank parts with precisely nothing when it loans you money. It creates a bookkeeping entry in your account that says “credit” while at the same time recording that you owe it that same amount of money in its receivables column. You can now use that money to write checks, etc., but you in contrast to the bank, you have to WORK for that money to pay it back to the bank. You give up something of value, and the bank doesn’t, but now you owe the bank interest on top of that. Thus, whenever the bank makes a loan, the domectic money supply is increased in the same amount - out of nothing. Fair deal?
Anyway, this situation (piles of debt piled onto further piles of even more debt) has created an untenable situation for the powers of international finance. The dollar, which is based on debt, was declared the international “reserve currency.” That means that dollar-denominated assets (usually Treasury bonds, another form of debt instruments) are what other countries’ central banks hold “in reserve” to back up the value of their respective (also debt-based) currencies. Debt piled on debt, piled on debt, used to “back up” even more debt. Since 1971, no country in the entire world has been allowed (under current IMF rules) to back its currency with anything other than what essentially amounts to debt. This nightmarish system has become so entrenched in our way of thinking that nobody thinks of it anymore at all - except for pro-American gold bugs ... and certain anti-American Muslims.
These Islamist Muslims have recognized that such a system is inherently vulnerable to attack, and they have figured out the best, most sure-fire means of attacking it. Their plan is to create the gold dinar as an Islamic competitor to this debt based system; a competitor that is based on real value: Gold. It is not hard to see how they could succeed with their plans. Imagine that only about half of all the Islamic countries in the world join together and form this new gold dinar system. Gold is a commodity that rich (and even poor) Muslims have hoarded for generations. They know that gold is ALWAYS accepted as a store of value and a medium of exchange, especially during emergencies when the non- Islamic world is in turmoil and undergoes heavy financial crises.
The gold dinar's primary target is the US dollar, that ultimate symbol of American wealth and economic prowess. The US dollar is already suffering internationally from the consequences of a Bill Clinton/Alan Greenspan-induced credit binge that powered the incredible economic expansion of the mid-to-late nineties through lower interest rates. But credit-induced economic expansions are always relatively short-lived, and always lead to inflation and mal-investment. A series of successive interest rate cuts in the mid-nineties caused more borrowing. In the process of borrowing, more “money” is created out of nothing and loaned into circulation. This new money normally floats around in the domestic economy, driving up prices. However, in the recent credit boom the excess money did not end up in the regular economy, driving up prices there, but served almost exclusively to further balloon an already burgeoning stock market. People loved it, because their stocks went up while prices for other “stuff” stayed low. The 1990s’ inflation happened in the stock markets, not in the goods and services sector. So everybody got high on this credit binge and people even hocked their homes to invest more money in stocks. And foreigners got in on it, sending their money to the US to participate in it all.
But now, everyone is tapped out. Stocks have been dropping for three years in a row, and the economy is teetering. Foreigners stopped sending their money to us, and the dollar’s value keeps dropping as foreigners perceive us to be “not so sterling” a credit risk any longer. Now, with the dollar being the reserve currency of the world’s central banks, if a significant number of these foreign central banks (say, half of the Islamic countries) should find a more secure, more valuable “reserve asset”, they will dump their treasury bonds and buy whatever else they think is more worthy. And the Muslims have correctly recognized that gold is worth more than debt - which is all that the US dollar is based upon. The gold Dinar 'monetary Jihad' would not be so dangerous had the US government not been so foolish as to surrepticiously agree with certain powerful bullion banks to squash the dollar-price of gold whenever it looked like it was going to go up. This was done to 'assure' Americans that it was still safe to spend like crazy and throw more money at the stock market in order to keep the artificial expansion going. In order to control the price of gold, the US Treasury, through the secretive 'Exchange Stabilization Fund' (operated entirely under the president’s executive power, wholly outside congressional oversight) backed the bullion banks’ continuous efforts to sell gold “short”, flooding the market with borrowed gold, lowering its price, and thus scaring skittish little gold investors our of their pants, causing them to sell as well.
This now has almost totally deprived the US Treasury and the Fed of the American citizens’ official gold reserves, making this country even more vulnerable to the Islamists gold dinar attack. For most of US gold has been loaned or “swapped” out. Nobody really knows how much is left - if any. So far, it all looks pretty bad for the good old USA. The official gold is (largely) gone, silver stockpiles are completely gone, the US government is hocked up to the hilt, the stock market is tanking, and the economy is lackluster due to corporate scandals and war fears. Are the "Jihadis" going to win this war against US economic supremacy? Not if Americans wake up for just a little while and pay attention. (I know, it’s hard.) While our stupid government under selfish Bill Clinton (and now under George Bush's failure to expose Clinton’s policies) blew away our official gold holdings, Americans individually now have the chance of a lifetime. If every individual American with any sense at all now goes and privately invests in gold in the same fashion in which we earlier threw money at the stock market, Americans can accomplish two things that will turn out to be the Islamists' undoing:
- They exchange something essentially worthless (paper dollars) into something of absolute value (gold), and
- they make sure that (despite foolish government policies) the US is not left out in the cold in a future world financial system where commerce is based on gold and neither the US government nor individual Americans themselves own any.
For, the great miscalculation of the Jihad-freaks lies in thinking that by giving birth to the gold Dinar, they will topple America itself. Instead, they will help cut out a cancer that has been eating away at not only America, but the entire world of the last three decades; and that cancer is a purely fiat-money, debt-based, financial system. The real question is not: will the gold dinar or the US dollar prevail? The real question is: Which of these two monetary systems will prevail: honest gold, or lying paper? What the Islamists do not understand is that the private ownership of gold, and a financial system based on gold convertibility, is the greatest guarantee of individual Liberty that has ever existed, and individual Liberty is what extremist Muslims are essentially attacking when they attack America, for their own system abhors individual liberty - especially of the religious kind.
Gold cannot be manipulated like paper can. Gold cannot be “printed” at will, and it cannot be loaned into existence, so a gold-based money supply cannot be artificially inflated. That means tHt under a gold standard, governments cannot enrich themselves by imposing the hidden tax of inflation on the people. As a result, governments lose power to the same degree in which Gold re-assumes its role as the foundation of the world financial system. And even with the few true freedoms that still exist in this country (despite the decades-long, relentless onslaught by our political and financial elites), especially when compared to the Islamic world, American industriousness, innovation, and and ingenuity will outperform the Muslim countries any day - as they have, even under a pure fiat system. That is the irony of it all. Instead of bringing America to its knees, the gold Dinar will help Americans cure their country from the fiat-currency cancer, and in the process make America stronger than ever - but this is only true IF individual Americans act now!
The fate of your country is literally in your hands
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Jakim ambil alih proses sijil halal
Jakim ambil alih proses sijil halal
Oleh Syuhada Choo Abdullah
choo@bharian.com.my
Kabinet lulus memorandum ganti HDC berkuat kuasa serta-merta
KUALA LUMPUR: Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim) mengambil alih semula peranan daripada Perbadanan Pembangunan Industri Halal (HDC) untuk mengendalikan urusan pengeluaran sijil halal, berkuat kuasa serta-merta.
Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom, berkata Kabinet meluluskan memorandum mengenai perkara itu yang dikemukakan oleh pihaknya dalam mesyuarat, kelmarin.
Katanya, langkah itu bertujuan memperkasa kewibawaan HDC yang terbabit dalam usaha pembangunan hab halal, supaya semakin berdaya saing dan dapat memberi tumpuan kepada proses pengeluaran produk mereka sehingga ke peringkat global.
Selain itu, beliau berkata, keputusan berkenaan juga diharap meningkatkan keyakinan orang ramai bahawa sijil halal dikeluarkan oleh Jakim sebagai agensi kerajaan yang sudah utuh dalam bidang terbabit.
"Memang tumpuan besar HDC ialah untuk (pengeluaran) produk sebab kita hendak melihat ia (berkembang) bukan hanya pada peringkat serantau, tetapi juga global. Justeru, kita lihat agak kurang sesuai pengeluaran sijil halal diletakkan di bawah tanggungjawab HDC dalam kadar tugasannya yang begitu luas dan besar.
"Malah, permintaan kepada halal begitu tinggi pada peringkat antarabangsa. Justeru, sudah sampai masanya dipisahkan tanggungjawab pengeluaran produk dan tugas mengeluarkan sijil halal dikembalikan kepada Jakim," katanya pada sidang akhbar di lobi Bangunan Parlimen di sini, semalam.
Berikutan itu, Jamil Khir berkata, perjawatan yang dipinjamkan kepada HDC, termasuk dari Kementerian Kesihatan, dikembalikan kepada pihak Jakim untuk membantu memperkukuh pensijilan halal.
"Logo halal yang sama akan digunakan, manakala sijil halal sedia ada (yang sudah dikeluarkan oleh HDC sebelum ini) berjalan seperti biasa kerana ia mematuhi audit kepatuhan," katanya.
Selain itu untuk memperkasa industri halal negara, beliau berkata, beberapa langkah sedang diteliti, termasuk dari segi perundangan dan kaji selidik, bagi memastikan produk dikeluarkan bukan saja diperakui melalui sijil, tetapi juga lebih berdaya saing serta berkualiti.
Bagi tujuan itu, katanya, kerajaan merancang untuk menyediakan sebuah institut halal di bawah pengurusan Jakim, di samping meneliti beberapa akta berkaitan yang perlu diperkukuhkan.
"Kita juga akan melihat ke arah mempercepatkan proses permohonan. Saya berharap dengan penyerahan kembali peranan mengeluarkan sijil halal ini, Jakim akan membuat pengukuhan dari segi kaedah pengeluaran, proses yang cekap dan tidak mengambil tempoh panjang.
"Kita faham produk ini perlu berdaya saing tinggi dalam pasaran. Maka jika produk lambat keluar, menyebabkan mungkin persaingan itu akan menjadi lambat dan sebagainya," katanya.
Selain itu, Jamil Khir berkata, kerjasama rapat akan dijalinkan dengan Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negeri, Koperasi dan Kepenggunaan ke arah memastikan penguatkuasaan pensijilan untuk membanteras gejala sijil halal palsu.
Oleh Syuhada Choo Abdullah
choo@bharian.com.my
Kabinet lulus memorandum ganti HDC berkuat kuasa serta-merta
KUALA LUMPUR: Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim) mengambil alih semula peranan daripada Perbadanan Pembangunan Industri Halal (HDC) untuk mengendalikan urusan pengeluaran sijil halal, berkuat kuasa serta-merta.
Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom, berkata Kabinet meluluskan memorandum mengenai perkara itu yang dikemukakan oleh pihaknya dalam mesyuarat, kelmarin.
Katanya, langkah itu bertujuan memperkasa kewibawaan HDC yang terbabit dalam usaha pembangunan hab halal, supaya semakin berdaya saing dan dapat memberi tumpuan kepada proses pengeluaran produk mereka sehingga ke peringkat global.
Selain itu, beliau berkata, keputusan berkenaan juga diharap meningkatkan keyakinan orang ramai bahawa sijil halal dikeluarkan oleh Jakim sebagai agensi kerajaan yang sudah utuh dalam bidang terbabit.
"Memang tumpuan besar HDC ialah untuk (pengeluaran) produk sebab kita hendak melihat ia (berkembang) bukan hanya pada peringkat serantau, tetapi juga global. Justeru, kita lihat agak kurang sesuai pengeluaran sijil halal diletakkan di bawah tanggungjawab HDC dalam kadar tugasannya yang begitu luas dan besar.
"Malah, permintaan kepada halal begitu tinggi pada peringkat antarabangsa. Justeru, sudah sampai masanya dipisahkan tanggungjawab pengeluaran produk dan tugas mengeluarkan sijil halal dikembalikan kepada Jakim," katanya pada sidang akhbar di lobi Bangunan Parlimen di sini, semalam.
Berikutan itu, Jamil Khir berkata, perjawatan yang dipinjamkan kepada HDC, termasuk dari Kementerian Kesihatan, dikembalikan kepada pihak Jakim untuk membantu memperkukuh pensijilan halal.
"Logo halal yang sama akan digunakan, manakala sijil halal sedia ada (yang sudah dikeluarkan oleh HDC sebelum ini) berjalan seperti biasa kerana ia mematuhi audit kepatuhan," katanya.
Selain itu untuk memperkasa industri halal negara, beliau berkata, beberapa langkah sedang diteliti, termasuk dari segi perundangan dan kaji selidik, bagi memastikan produk dikeluarkan bukan saja diperakui melalui sijil, tetapi juga lebih berdaya saing serta berkualiti.
Bagi tujuan itu, katanya, kerajaan merancang untuk menyediakan sebuah institut halal di bawah pengurusan Jakim, di samping meneliti beberapa akta berkaitan yang perlu diperkukuhkan.
"Kita juga akan melihat ke arah mempercepatkan proses permohonan. Saya berharap dengan penyerahan kembali peranan mengeluarkan sijil halal ini, Jakim akan membuat pengukuhan dari segi kaedah pengeluaran, proses yang cekap dan tidak mengambil tempoh panjang.
"Kita faham produk ini perlu berdaya saing tinggi dalam pasaran. Maka jika produk lambat keluar, menyebabkan mungkin persaingan itu akan menjadi lambat dan sebagainya," katanya.
Selain itu, Jamil Khir berkata, kerjasama rapat akan dijalinkan dengan Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negeri, Koperasi dan Kepenggunaan ke arah memastikan penguatkuasaan pensijilan untuk membanteras gejala sijil halal palsu.
Takaful market in Malaysia
SYARIKAT Takaful Malaysia Bhd aims to capture more than half of the takaful industry's total asset market share within the next two years amid the current economic slowdown.
Group managing director, Datuk Mohamad Hassan Kamil, said the industry''s total assets amounted to between RM11 billion and RM12 billion while the company''s share currently was RM4.05 billion.
"We will grow slightly above the current takaful market rate, which is between 20 and 25 per cent per annum," he told a media briefing after signing an agreement with Standard Financial Planner Sdn Bhd (SFP) in Kuala Lumpur today.
SFP, which was set up in 1999, is one of only ten licensed financial advisors in Malaysia.
It is a member of the Australian-based Professional Investment Group of Companies that operates across seven countries.
Hassan said under the agreement, SFP would market Takaful Malaysia's products through its nationwide network of more than 300 representatives, of which 75 per cent were licensed financial advisors with Bank Negara Malaysia.
He said the addition of SFP to its existing portfolio of distribution channels would boost the company's revenue by 10 per cent.
"This will enhance the penetration rate of our family and general products into the middle-upper Malaysian market as well as making them more accessible wider customer base.
"We will work closely with SFP's financial advisors to offer comprehensive insurance, investment and saving options to satisfy the holistic demand from customers," he said.
Takaful Malaysia posted a pre-tax loss of RM11.461 million for the third quarter ended March 31, 2009 compared to a pre-tax profit of RM11.07 million in the same quarter last year.
Revenue declined to RM187.667 million from RM280.678 million previously.
Hassan said Takaful Malaysia planned to undertake a rebranding exercise to reflect its fresh characteristics in conjunction with its 25th year anniversary in December. - Bernama
Group managing director, Datuk Mohamad Hassan Kamil, said the industry''s total assets amounted to between RM11 billion and RM12 billion while the company''s share currently was RM4.05 billion.
"We will grow slightly above the current takaful market rate, which is between 20 and 25 per cent per annum," he told a media briefing after signing an agreement with Standard Financial Planner Sdn Bhd (SFP) in Kuala Lumpur today.
SFP, which was set up in 1999, is one of only ten licensed financial advisors in Malaysia.
It is a member of the Australian-based Professional Investment Group of Companies that operates across seven countries.
Hassan said under the agreement, SFP would market Takaful Malaysia's products through its nationwide network of more than 300 representatives, of which 75 per cent were licensed financial advisors with Bank Negara Malaysia.
He said the addition of SFP to its existing portfolio of distribution channels would boost the company's revenue by 10 per cent.
"This will enhance the penetration rate of our family and general products into the middle-upper Malaysian market as well as making them more accessible wider customer base.
"We will work closely with SFP's financial advisors to offer comprehensive insurance, investment and saving options to satisfy the holistic demand from customers," he said.
Takaful Malaysia posted a pre-tax loss of RM11.461 million for the third quarter ended March 31, 2009 compared to a pre-tax profit of RM11.07 million in the same quarter last year.
Revenue declined to RM187.667 million from RM280.678 million previously.
Hassan said Takaful Malaysia planned to undertake a rebranding exercise to reflect its fresh characteristics in conjunction with its 25th year anniversary in December. - Bernama
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