The Economy – A Stimulating Idiot’s Guide

ARCHIVES 2009

By admin-s On Feb 25, 2009

Ha…ha… bloody HA. Malaysia apparently is – or is it "was"? – "insulated" from the global economics meltdown. Like, awesome dood! While the rest of the world – America, Japan and Germany included – were knocked out silly by the meltdown, Malaysia was smiling her way to an economics safety vault.

These were respectively the biggest and 2nd biggest economy in the world as well as the biggest economy in Europe. And they were in trouble. But no, Malaysia is insulated because of our "diversified economy and strong foundations". And guess what? Our GDP growth next year was loftily projected to be 4.5%.

Despite many economists saying that the Malaysian Finance Ministry is living in dreamland, we continue our usual repeat therapy. For the uninitiated, "repeat therapy" is a process where we are all programmed to believe that everything which we repeatedly say will actually happen if we repeat it often enough. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pioneered this mind technology. Remember when he repeatedly said "I am in control"? Or when he repeatedly chanted "I will be fair"? Yes. Things like that. And so, if we repeat "Malaysia's economy is insulated" many many times, than our economy might just, indeed, be insulated. Now. Repeat after me. "Cow dung".

The truth is the world economy is so bad and it is going to hit us like one big bad fiery meteor from hell. Just imagine. The International Labour Organisation projects that 23 million people are going to lose their jobs in Asia this year! (see here). 1% of that is 230000. Even if Malaysia "contributes" 0.5% of that, it would mean 115000 Malaysians would lose their job! And we are insulated? And what about the 300000 odd Malaysians who are now working in Singapore. If even 10% of them are retrenched, that means 30000 people without jobs. Add to that the reduction of working days due to production cut-off, cancellation of over-time, forced holiday and leave as well as bonus and salary increase freeze, have we ever thought what that would do to our economy? And we are stimulated? GDP of 4.5%? Good God! Just this morning, the radio announced that Citibank Group had forecast that our GDP will in fact shrink by 1.5% this year! That means we will be in a recession. The big R is here. But remember what Abdullah and Nor Mohamad said earlier this year? No. We will not be in a recession. Now, please repeat that folks. Repeat it until you sleep.

All the numbers are slowly creeping out now. Malaysia's export has shrunk. In December 2008 alone, our export shrunk to 46 billion ringgit, which represents a 14.9% decline year on year. (see here). Our biggest trading partner, America, is in a financial black hole. Japan, our traditional trading partner is seeing their consumer index dipping southward at an alarming rate. And we are apparently, insulated. Which makes me wonder what magical economics inoculations have Malaysia been injected with all this while!

Let me tell about the economics in normal, easy to understand terms.

Lesson One: The Economy is Like a Set of Tits