A less blunt tool for Lim Guan Eng? Really, Mr Mukherjee?
We sure as hell want to know what happened. We don’t mind the language.
Leslie Lau, Managing Editor, The Malay Mail Online
What exactly is a “less blunt tool”?
In a column this news website published yesterday, Bloomberg’s Andy Mukherjee had this to say: “Malaysia’s new finance minister is taking a sledgehammer to 1MDB. A less blunt tool would do the job just as well, probably better.”
In his words, Mukherjee said, “Lim Guan Eng is busy telling the world about the shocking state of affairs at the scandal-ridden state fund. But that won’t sate the Malaysian public’s desire for justice. Investors, meanwhile, are uneasy about things getting out of hand. Already, foreigners have sold out of the nation’s stocks for 13 consecutive days.
“For Lim to declare in his first press conference that government debt has exceeded RM1 trillion because of a sly public bailout of 1MDB gets him full marks for honesty, but not for tact.”
So, what indeed is this less blunt tool? Mukherjee offers no clues.
We can only guess he means Malaysia’s finance minister should hold back on telling the public exactly what went wrong with 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and the scale of the giant hole in the country’s books.
So, how much should Lim hold back? How much tact should Lim have?
Should Lim hold back long enough for foreign investors to take up positions that would minimise losses and maximise gains, and then let fly?
Oh, maybe foreign investors should have been briefed first ahead of Malaysians who actually pay the salary of the finance minister?
While we are on the subject, what exactly does Mukherjee mean by foreign investors?
Perhaps he should call a spade a spade and just say foreign funds? Let’s not hide behind the catch-all phrase of “foreign investor”. A real foreign investor is an active participant in the Malaysian economy who builds a factory for example and offers up new technology and jobs.
Foreign funds are just like anyone who punts (For punt, read: gamble, as in rolls dice in a casino) on the stock market. They are passive investors hoping to make money off the backs of other people.
