Just who is minding the store?
If the government does not get going and try to do something for the economy, all the politicking in Perak will come to nothing because there will be no silverware left for the winner. We may not even be able to afford a wooden spoon.
James Chin, The Malaysian Insider
The entire country is fixated with Perak. Nothing wrong with that, it’s not often that you get a state with two MBs and plenty of frogs jumping around.
The legality and morality of the “new” versus the “old” governments will never be resolved because politics in this country is based on which side of the fence you are sitting on.
Let’s be truthful. There is a lot of hypocrisy going on. If you jump into my party, it’s okay but if you jump into the other party, hell is waiting for you.
When it comes to human greed or, in this case, a naked power grab, you can justify just about anything.
All I ask is that you look back far enough and you will find that both sides suffer from deep hypocrisy. Each side will do what it takes to take power and stay in power.
This is the basic rule and objective of the game. It does not matter if you throw in religion, race, historical grievances, etc, it is really, ultimately, essentially and only about power.
It is almost certain that the Perak Crisis has still got some way to go.
I am worried about this because, while the entire nation is pre-occupied with the Crisis, who is minding the economy? I say this because the whole region is about to be engulfed by the economic tsunami and Malaysians are busy building sand castles on the beach.
Let’s not kid ourselves about how resilient our economy is and how we can still achieve 1-2 per cent growth next year. The fact is that we are an open economy and we trade extensively with the rest of the world. In fact, our bread and butter (or rice and gravy, if you like) are manufacturing and commodities.
Manufacturing is just about dead (just ask the electronics people in Penang) and commodities are not doing any better. Demand is simply drying up as the US, the world’s biggest consumer, tightens its belt.
In case you think our magic cornucopia of plenty – Petronas – will bail us out, think again. Crude oil is now under US$50 a barrel and will not go above this figure for the rest of this year. This cash cow has been tapped out, it has no spare change given that it has already bailed out the previous budget.
Yet, you really have to laugh at our stimulus package – RM7 billion in the first round. The amount works out to about 1per cent of Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP). The second round is supposed to worth a lot more, in the region of RM10 billion.
To contrast, the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus package is about 6 per cent of GDP of the US economy. China’s stimulus package is worth about 16 per cent of its GDP.
Even that red dot’s stimulus package is worth US$6.2 billion, on top of US$1.2 billion from last July. Singaporeans are also getting tax cuts.
What is worse, the RM7 billion announced last November has yet to be spent.
You really have to wonder if there is anyone awake inside MOF.
There is no sense of urgency. We are living in a cocoon where the only games in town are leapfrog and musical chairs.
Meanwhile, we are trading accusations over frogs, treasonous behaviour and multiple lawsuits. It is as if all the top politicians in this country have gone loco and cannot see the fire coming.
If the government does not get going and try to do something for the economy, all the politicking in Perak will come to nothing because there will be no silverware left for the winner. We may not even be able to afford a wooden spoon.
What we are seeing before our eyes is the collapse of the world trading system as we know it.
The challenge is not just about reviving the world economy, it is to remake a new world economic order.
Many people in the world understand this but here, our politicians are sill concentrating on rearing and catching frogs. May the Big Person Above save us all!
