Barisan Nasional's Logo - a well balance scale. In actual fact, it tilts to one side!My friend shared the following first article with me. We do not know who the writer is but it is a "easy-to-read" and "to-the-point" article that strike the cords of every concerned Malaysians' heart on how they feel about the current sorry state of Malaysia today.
If one has been following the development of political scenes in Malaysia lately, it shows our ruling party has no interest to rectify issues listed below. Instead, just concentrating on securing their power and forget about the economy....Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!
For any foreigner who wants to know what happens to Malaysian Politics recently, please refer to the Commentary by Andy Mukherjee of "Bloomberg.com Opinion" or read the second article attached below.
If one has been following the development of political scenes in Malaysia lately, it shows our ruling party has no interest to rectify issues listed below. Instead, just concentrating on securing their power and forget about the economy....Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!
For any foreigner who wants to know what happens to Malaysian Politics recently, please refer to the Commentary by Andy Mukherjee of "Bloomberg.com Opinion" or read the second article attached below.
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When we started work around 1973 a 1.3 Litre Japanese car was RM7000
Today the equivalent let's say it is RM60000............*8.5 times*
In 1973 a double storey house was about RM45,000...or less
Today it is about RM300,000............*6.6 times*
In 1973 an Engineer's pay was RM1000
Today it is about RM2000 +/-............*2 times*
From 1973 to 2008 ...... 35 years ...... what is the Trend.? *Bearish!!!!*
In a stock market when the trend is bearish, what do we do?.. Exit !!!
When a country's trend is bearish what do we do?
This Bearish trend is more difficult to turn around as compared to the stock market.
I have used these 3 items - House, Car & Salary as a measurement of the country's performance for the past 35 years....
There is a book I saw in MPH bookshop entitled : ‘Malaysia : The Failed Nation’, some of you may be interested to read up. I agree with the writer.....
This morning I was having Coffee at McDonald’s (now the coffee..100 % Arabica beans..is quite good @ RM2.90....free refill!. I asked how much per hour is their pay?
*RM 3.00 x 8 hours = RM24 per day... x 25 days = RM600 per month*
My daughter worked part-time during her University days... she worked at Gloria Jeans Coffee .. the pay : A$14.00 (@ 3.15 = RM44 per hour.....x 8 = RM352 per day!!! x 25 days = RM8800)
13.3 times more !!!!! ...... Price of houses in Perth is about the same in KL Price of cars are about 23 % cheaper in Perth.
Developed country by 2020?...means High income country
Let's look at some as of year 2005 (Financial Times)
USA GNP per capita US$35400
UK GNP per capita US$25510
Australia GNP per capita US$19530
Singapore GNP per capita US$20690
These are developed countries by income measurement
Malaysia GNP per capita US$3540
Year 2020..developed country?
Really...a sad story.
Worrying Trend, isn't it??????
Ringgit sliding further and further under BN
Recently, I interviewed some fresh graduates applying for jobs with my engineering company. I accepted two applicants on a starting salary of RM1600. It struck me as odd that 15 years ago, I myself started work as a fresh graduate engineer for the same pay.
Indeed, if you compare the salaries of graduates now and 15 or even 20 years ago, you'll find little difference but their purchasing power is vastly different. It's the same story when you compare salaries of shop assistants, office staff, factory workers and others.
To compound the effect of inflation, the ringgit has depreciated greatly against all major currencies. The real income of most Malaysians has moved backwards.
This is why many Malaysians suffer under the petrol hike. The root of the problem is that our real incomes have shrunk in the face of inflation and depreciated currency. Malaysians have not been spoiled by subsidy but are unable to move out of the time lock of stagnated and depreciated incomes.
If you compare the per capita incomes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, they are a few multiples of ours although at independence all these countries were on the same economic level as Malaysia.
What has gone wrong? We were the rising star of East Asia, a country rich in natural resources with the most promising potential.
The reason is massive corruption, plundering of resources, wastage of funds for huge non- economic projects, anti-public interest deals with politically-linked companies and passing-the-buck to the man in the street.
Four decades of NEP where education, economic and employment policies are defined by race ensured that meritocracy took a back seat.Our university standard has declined and the today best and brightest of our youth emigrate to escape the racial inequity only to contribute to the economies of foreign lands.
The reputation of our judiciary which was held in high esteem worldwide has sunk so low that foreign investors now insist on arbitration in Singapore in case of any dispute.
We also have a slew of oppressive laws such as the ISA, OSA, UUCA and PPPA which stifle free speech and are designed to keep the ruling parties in power.We have become less attractive to foreign investors and now lag behind our neighbours in Asean for foreign direct investment. Even some corporations which have established themselves here are moving out.
All the economic and social malaise cannot help but affect the value of our currency. The strength of a country's currency is after all, a reflection of its fundamentals. Furthermore, Bank Negara has a policy of weak ringgit to help exporters, never mind the burden on the common folk. The government is pro-corporation, not pro-rakyat.
While the poor and middle-class are squeezed, an elite group gets breathtakingly rich. We have the distinction of having the worse income disparity in Asean. A re-distribution of wealth is under way from the poor and middle-class to a select group of politically-connected elite.
The end result of this re-distribution will be a small group of super-rich while the majority are pushed into poverty and the middle-class shrinks. This is what happens when the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer.
There is much that is wrong with Malaysia. The responsibility for pulling the country backwards can be laid squarely at the door of the ruling regime. It is BN's mis-governance, racial politics and culture of patronage which has seen the country regress economically and socially.
We seem to be sliding down a slippery slope, further down with each passing year of BN's rule. Another five years of BN rule and we'll be at Indonesia 's standard under Suharto. Another 10 years and we'll be touching the African standard.
What a way to greet 2020.
Is there any hope for Malaysia?
Faced with the reality that BN will never change, many Malaysians desperate for change turn their lonely eyes to Anwar Ibrahim. Pakatan Raykat has promised to treat all races fairly, to plug wastage, fight corruption, reform the judiciary and make Malaysia more competitive.
But some have questioned whether we can trust Anwar and his loose coalition of disparate parties.
The question is not whether we can trust Anwar and Pakatan Rakyat but whether we can afford not to.
Can we afford another ten years of BN's misrule?
Today the equivalent let's say it is RM60000............*8.5 times*
In 1973 a double storey house was about RM45,000...or less
Today it is about RM300,000............*6.6 times*
In 1973 an Engineer's pay was RM1000
Today it is about RM2000 +/-............*2 times*
From 1973 to 2008 ...... 35 years ...... what is the Trend.? *Bearish!!!!*
In a stock market when the trend is bearish, what do we do?.. Exit !!!
When a country's trend is bearish what do we do?
This Bearish trend is more difficult to turn around as compared to the stock market.
I have used these 3 items - House, Car & Salary as a measurement of the country's performance for the past 35 years....
There is a book I saw in MPH bookshop entitled : ‘Malaysia : The Failed Nation’, some of you may be interested to read up. I agree with the writer.....
This morning I was having Coffee at McDonald’s (now the coffee..100 % Arabica beans..is quite good @ RM2.90....free refill!. I asked how much per hour is their pay?
*RM 3.00 x 8 hours = RM24 per day... x 25 days = RM600 per month*
My daughter worked part-time during her University days... she worked at Gloria Jeans Coffee .. the pay : A$14.00 (@ 3.15 = RM44 per hour.....x 8 = RM352 per day!!! x 25 days = RM8800)
13.3 times more !!!!! ...... Price of houses in Perth is about the same in KL Price of cars are about 23 % cheaper in Perth.
Developed country by 2020?...means High income country
Let's look at some as of year 2005 (Financial Times)
USA GNP per capita US$35400
UK GNP per capita US$25510
Australia GNP per capita US$19530
Singapore GNP per capita US$20690
These are developed countries by income measurement
Malaysia GNP per capita US$3540
Year 2020..developed country?
Really...a sad story.
Worrying Trend, isn't it??????
Ringgit sliding further and further under BN
Recently, I interviewed some fresh graduates applying for jobs with my engineering company. I accepted two applicants on a starting salary of RM1600. It struck me as odd that 15 years ago, I myself started work as a fresh graduate engineer for the same pay.
Indeed, if you compare the salaries of graduates now and 15 or even 20 years ago, you'll find little difference but their purchasing power is vastly different. It's the same story when you compare salaries of shop assistants, office staff, factory workers and others.
To compound the effect of inflation, the ringgit has depreciated greatly against all major currencies. The real income of most Malaysians has moved backwards.
This is why many Malaysians suffer under the petrol hike. The root of the problem is that our real incomes have shrunk in the face of inflation and depreciated currency. Malaysians have not been spoiled by subsidy but are unable to move out of the time lock of stagnated and depreciated incomes.
If you compare the per capita incomes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, they are a few multiples of ours although at independence all these countries were on the same economic level as Malaysia.
What has gone wrong? We were the rising star of East Asia, a country rich in natural resources with the most promising potential.
The reason is massive corruption, plundering of resources, wastage of funds for huge non- economic projects, anti-public interest deals with politically-linked companies and passing-the-buck to the man in the street.
Four decades of NEP where education, economic and employment policies are defined by race ensured that meritocracy took a back seat.Our university standard has declined and the today best and brightest of our youth emigrate to escape the racial inequity only to contribute to the economies of foreign lands.
The reputation of our judiciary which was held in high esteem worldwide has sunk so low that foreign investors now insist on arbitration in Singapore in case of any dispute.
We also have a slew of oppressive laws such as the ISA, OSA, UUCA and PPPA which stifle free speech and are designed to keep the ruling parties in power.We have become less attractive to foreign investors and now lag behind our neighbours in Asean for foreign direct investment. Even some corporations which have established themselves here are moving out.
All the economic and social malaise cannot help but affect the value of our currency. The strength of a country's currency is after all, a reflection of its fundamentals. Furthermore, Bank Negara has a policy of weak ringgit to help exporters, never mind the burden on the common folk. The government is pro-corporation, not pro-rakyat.
While the poor and middle-class are squeezed, an elite group gets breathtakingly rich. We have the distinction of having the worse income disparity in Asean. A re-distribution of wealth is under way from the poor and middle-class to a select group of politically-connected elite.
The end result of this re-distribution will be a small group of super-rich while the majority are pushed into poverty and the middle-class shrinks. This is what happens when the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer.
There is much that is wrong with Malaysia. The responsibility for pulling the country backwards can be laid squarely at the door of the ruling regime. It is BN's mis-governance, racial politics and culture of patronage which has seen the country regress economically and socially.
We seem to be sliding down a slippery slope, further down with each passing year of BN's rule. Another five years of BN rule and we'll be at Indonesia 's standard under Suharto. Another 10 years and we'll be touching the African standard.
What a way to greet 2020.
Is there any hope for Malaysia?
Faced with the reality that BN will never change, many Malaysians desperate for change turn their lonely eyes to Anwar Ibrahim. Pakatan Raykat has promised to treat all races fairly, to plug wastage, fight corruption, reform the judiciary and make Malaysia more competitive.
But some have questioned whether we can trust Anwar and his loose coalition of disparate parties.
The question is not whether we can trust Anwar and Pakatan Rakyat but whether we can afford not to.
Can we afford another ten years of BN's misrule?
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Main Casts:
First row: 1st Pic: Badawi, 2nd pic: Anwar, 3rd Pic: Najib,
Second row: 1st Pic: Abdul Razak, 2nd Pic: Altantuya, 3rd Pic: Saiful
Commentary by Andy MukherjeeJuly 17 (Bloomberg) --
- A Mongolian woman, an aspiring model, is blown to bits with C-4 explosives.
- Allegations are made of an illicit affair, of bribery in a defense deal, of a dinner in Paris.
- A private investigator points his finger at the deputy prime minister who strongly denies any involvement. The detective retracts his statement (less than 24 hours post media conference, after meeting the police) and then, well, disappears.
- An opposition politician releases grainy videotapes of a top lawyer purportedly trying to fix judicial appointments.
- Charges of sodomy surface against the politician.
- Masked policemen arrest him.
- That, in a nutshell, is Malaysian politics.
- Investors don't stand a chance predicting what will happen next: This pulp fiction may even be beyond Quentin Tarantino's capacity to piece something together.
- The sordid saga took a dangerous turn yesterday (15.7.08) after the police in Kuala Lumpur apprehended opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who has said he will have enough lawmakers on his side by Sept. 16 to bring down the government.
- Malaysian stocks fell to a 16-month low; the country's currency, the ringgit, slumped the most in two weeks.
- Malaysia ought to serve as a statutory warning to fast- growing Asian nations about the pointlessness of chasing the dream of Western-style prosperity while failing to build strong democratic institutions. It's wishful thinking that the latter would miraculously appear when a threshold level of per-capita income is crossed.
Desperate Moves
- Laws that curb free speech and assembly and allow people to be put in jail indefinitely without trial create an illusion of stability, which can last a long time.
- However, the moment cracks appear in the leadership, the government panics, and so does the challenger.
- Both are driven to take extreme steps because each knows how tough it is to wrest power -- or to regain it -- in a game where the incumbent sets all the rules.
- Anwar's arrest came after allegations by a former aide that the 60-year-old politician sodomized him on eight occasions.
- Anwar denies the charge and says it's a conspiracy by leaders of the ruling coalition -- which has governed Malaysia uninterrupted for 51 years -- to hold on to power.
- Anwar has filed a defamation suit against his 23-year-old accuser.
- Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak denies he ever met -- let alone had an affair with -- Altantuya Shaariibuu, a 28-year-old Mongolian woman murdered in Malaysia two years ago; Abdul Razak Baginda, a political analyst who was once employed by Najib, is currently on trial for abetting the slaying.
Trading Charges
- Anwar says the sodomy allegation against him was instigated by Najib, who, in turn, says Anwar is framing him to divert attention from his own homosexuality.
- This isn't Anwar's first brush with the sodomy law. A similar charge had been brought against him in 1998 when he was becoming a threat to then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad; the allegation became the basis for Anwar's dismissal as finance minister.
- The Federal Court overturned the sodomy conviction in 2004 and released Anwar from prison.
- In national elections held in March this year, Anwar staged an upset. The ruling Barisan Nasional, which means National Front, fell short of a two-thirds supermajority in parliament; it lost power in five states, including Selangor, Penang and Perak, three of the most economically developed.
- This led Mahathir to demand, with increasing stridency, the ouster of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the current prime minister. In May, Mahathir even quit the party he led for 22 years to protest against Abdullah's continuation.
Anwar's Challenge
- Abdullah this month said he will hand over power to Najib in 2010. That may be too late for Barisan Nasional and a section of the Malaysian elite. Anwar last year produced a videotape showing that top judicial appointments in Malaysia during Mahathir's rule were influenced by businessmen with vested interests.
- A government-appointed commission has found the video clip authentic and called for further investigations.
- No one really believes that Anwar's arrest will end the power struggle in Malaysia. The country in 2008 is different from what it was in 1998 in several key respects.
- Blogs and other Internet-based news sources now inform public discourse, even as the mainstream media continue to be dominated by parties in the ruling coalition.
Gorbachev Figure
- The other difference is that in 1998 Anwar was challenging Mahathir, who had no intention of losing the fight. One can't be so sure about Abdullah's tenacity. Wittingly or otherwise, Abdullah has positioned himself as a transition figure, with the Economist magazine comparing him to Mikhail Gorbachev in an article this month.
- Anwar's supporters took to the streets yesterday (17.7.08) demanding that he be released. They shouted ``reformasi,'' or Malay for ``reform,'' which was their slogan even 10 years ago.
- Race-based quotas that discriminate against ethnic Chinese and Indians in jobs and education, too much government involvement in the economy and the attendant cronyism all need to change in Malaysia.
- But above all, the politics need to be cleaned up.
