Dear YB - Please Help Siti

Dear YB Khairy Jamaluddin,



It has been a pleasure having supported your cause for the rights of the poor and marginalized people in the country regardless of race. You are perhaps the only Barisan Nasional Member of Parliament that has consistently spoken on this issue,

Unfortunately, due to the extreme hate levelled at you by evildoers, your ability to help people is somewhat curtailed as you had been denied a chance to serve the people more in the Government.

I want to now challenge you, YB Khairy Jamaluddin to show that you can indeed rise to the occasion, that you can indeed make a difference by marshalling together a group of people to help support a noble cause.

The cause concerns a "fighter" like yourself, but slightly younger by the name of Siti Amynur Ain Putri. One of my blogger friends, the Dnightcaller has highlighted the details of her plight here

As Dnightcaller relates, Siti had lost her father very early in life, when she was 8 years old. Her mother, Rusmah Abdullah, took care of Siti and her elder brother (aged 14) since then with a monthly income of RM 500 before she has to quit her job 4 months ago to take care of Siti who broke her leg in an accident. Since then, the family survive on RM 400 per month financial aid.Her mother walked 1 km daily to deliver packed food to Siti because Siti has to stay back in her school to attend extra classes in preparation for her UPSR. 2 weeks ago, Rusmah Abdullah was hospitalised for low blood pressure and died on Wednesday night before the UPSR results were announced.

With her mothers sacrifice and her hard work, she scored 5As for her UPSR.

Now unfortunately she has been left an orphan.

YB Khairy,
When it comes to helping people, you are the best person to turn to. Who can forget how you took it upon yourself to help a group of children who had been abandoned by their mother, when you marshalled together aid totally RM 20,000.

In this regard YB, I hope the following can be done

(1) Investigating the case and finding out whether Siti can stay with her grandparents. If not, to find out whether there are other families willing to look after Siti and her brother. Worst comes to worst, to find a foster home, but really a girl like Siti and her brother deserves a family.

(2) Providing aid in the form of a annuity, I believe that we can somehow raise RM 20,000 per year for her, that should assist in providing living expenses for her and her brother. Once the details of the fund has been set up, I will provide the link on the Rembau Times. Surely, of the thousands of readers we get, we can perhaps convince 98 other people (Nightcaller is Donor #1, I am Donor #2) to contribute RM 100 per year, making it RM 10,000/yr committed.

If you can match Ringgit for Ringgit what is raised from the public, then Siti and her brother will be taken care of.

(3) This problem can be solved, its solvable, its not a case of lets have hearts tugged and cluck our tongues and do nothing.

(4) Once the bank account is made known, we can start accepting donations and then disbursing the funds in an orderly manner. Any excess funds could be invested in bank Fixed Deposit so that long term funding is made available.

Siti is worth this fight because she like you is a fighter. She did not let circumstances get in the way of pursuing a dream for academic excellence - and we know it is excellence which is lacking in our country today. All we need is to just sustain her for about 8 years, which is not that long a time, before she can go to University via Government assistance, graduate and help contribute back to society.


Sincerely,

Wenger J Khairy


Updated 2:41.
YB KJ is down for RM 2,000 per year and the volunteers in his office are down for RM 1,000 per year.

Congrats YB! Your a true hero! Come on others ...

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India, China, Democracy, Communism and RM 50 billion

As to the better part of my head which says, "not to get involved", I have decided to throw caution to the wind and wade right into into the latest controversy in the Blogger world concerning Tun Dr Mahathir's famous statement extolling the virtues of the totalitarian state and at the same time condemning the rights of man for a greater democratic freedom.

Art Harun really hit the nail on the head with his fact-for-fact rebuttal of Tun Dr Mahathirs statement over here:

Not only was it a pleasure to read, the grammar, the choice of words and the sentence structure was all reflective of a genuinely learned man.

(Tun Dr.)Mahathir said: “India, of course, will grow, but more slowly than China. It has the numbers but is not making use of them well.”

“Democracy can be a hindrance to progress because you spend so much time politicking that you don’t have time to develop your country.

Rocky Bru, who will never ever make mention of me, decided instead to give air to a contrary opinion by the blogger Sinatra Z over here. Rocky Bru lamented the fact that Malaysian Insider did not publish the rebuttal.

After reading Sinatra Z's response, I can conclude that it indeed was in keeping with his blog's title - Catatan Seekor Lipas.

In it, as keeping with the Lipas-level mentality, Sinatra Z takes issue with the Indian Government, characterizing India as a nation with starving hard working farmers, fighting drought and high fertilizer prices.

It seems that this ill was due to democracy. Democracy, sir ruined the soil and made sure no rain falleth on that land!

Anyhow, let me make it abundantly clear, the Lipas does not know what he is talking about. The Indian economy more than doubled over the last 5 years, and has a GDP in excess of $1.2 trillion. Whilst we are still struggling with negative growth for FY 09, the Indian economy is poised to grow 6-7% this year.

This figure should really make one question on what basis is Tun Dr Mahathir making his statement? Its completely fictious, it has no grounding in fact, and most important, for the millions of citizens who had been "stupefied" during his rule - its plain misleading!

Part of the reason that I blog is to try and undo this damage. I feel strongly that we can only grow our country if we have an educated workforce. But if our "statesman" can conveniently "forget" that a nation he trashes grows a phenomenal rate and is part of the darling of the International FDI Market - then really what hope do we have?

The issue on whether totalitarianism vs. democracy has been Tun Dr Mahathir's famous line of defence for justifying the wanton acts of unilateralism that characterized his misrule. Today in his blog he self glorifies his decision to develop Putrajaya.

This is what he said

9. Putrajaya and Cyberjaya - bought by the acres. Putrajaya, 10,000 acres for RM700 million or approximately RM17,500 per acre or RM0.43 per square foot.

10. Today average price of Putrajaya land per square foot is RM130.00.

Well thats actually RM 70,000 per acre. The Goverment would have only spent RM 187 million, if indeed it was 43 cents per square foot!

Anyhow, whats a couple of hundred million in a multi billion project...
If this is independent valuation is true, then Putrajaya should be worth RM 56 billion!

Fantastic right, we invest RM 187-700 million and we get RM 56 billion in return!

Amazing.

But of course, we forget to include what ever monies is spent to clear the land, build the roads, yada-yada-yada. Perhaps thats the difference between the RM 700 m and the RM 187 m . And we forget to include the annual maintenance cost of Putrajaya.

I tried and tried to get a Government report that clearly states how much was spent, and how much was obtained, but alas, due to the practise of this style democranism, I was unable to obtain any figure.

So we do not know how much was spent, how much return was obtained. We have to take it that the only publicly disclosed figure is from Che Det's blog, and it it we made a return of 30,000%. (130-0.43/0.43*100 for the Mahathirst bloggers who can't understand basic finance)

This is perhaps one of the single best investments ever made in the history of modern capitalism! Hopefully the Government can realize this gain of RM 50 billion and cut the deficit down to RM 300 billion. This act alone will enable the Ringgit to surge to at least 3 to the dollar!

So in conclusion, I think its quite clear why we need more democracy and greater freedom. Without democracy, we will never get the access to information that is our democratic right but instead have to be satisfied with the scraps thrown to us to satisfy our curiosity.


Because unless your part of this cartel, no matter how smart you think you are, really your just an idiot that deserves no respect!

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TAKDA MALU KE

Local Works Of Art Can Contribute To Nation's Economy, Says Mukhriz

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 (Bernama) -- The works of local artists have tremendous potential to be developed into an industry that can contribute to the country's economic growth in the future, says International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir.

Paintings carry very high value and could bring in good returns when exported overseas, he said.

Read more about our misguided Deputy Minister in action

Earlier today I added my comments about the growing concern I have as to the long term prospects for our economy. This view was echoed by the World Bank in a detailed report published a couple of days ago and made available free of charge.

Philip Schellekens, who works in the East Asia and Pacific Department of the World Bank, made comment to this report in his blog posting titled The winds of change are blowing in Malaysia's economy. In summary, the comment was at best that of guarded optimism, as basically the country needs to move up the "food chain" and revitalize the dynamism of its economy. For more information just click on the link provided above.

Needless to say our local media hacks spun a story. Read this story by Fintan Ng from the Star or this story from Bernama and compare against what Mr. Schellekens, a graduate of LSE, an ex-researcher at MIT and Harvard, actually said.

Needless to say - the context had been spun many times over.

Anyhow, we already accept it as a given that the media would do such tricks. Nothing new here, and perhaps its really not something to get that upset about. What would really upset me is if those who are actually supposed to be leading our country's economy believe the spin themselves and just don't get it!

That would worry me, because its one thing to fool others, its a totally different story to fool yourself.

You see when any professional makes an opinion, the onus is it to back it up with data, statistical inferences and analysis. The World Bank did its part, with its stats and graphs available from here.

This is just one of the graphs lifted from the World Bank


This graph is especially important. It shows where our innovation is vis-à-vis our nearest competitors. Clearly we are way low, so even though our exports total RM 800 billion a year, our imports are about 90% of that, which means we can capture only a small part of the value due to our cheap labour. Furthermore as I alluded to my earlier post on the J curve, this method of growing our economy via cheap labour is dangerous and unsustainable as the other countries like Indonesia and Thailand innovate and upgrade their labour force.



Now let us relook what is the sum total response from those affiliated to our Deputy Minister in charge of International Trade and Industry.




So when foreigners, agents of the "Jews" actually bother to try and tell us something that needs to be changed, we are busy menglabelkan them as anti Malaysia,

and in fact we are cheating ourselves.

Furthermore, our Deputy Minister of MITI seems to have no clue nor sense of urgency in actually tackling this problem. To date he has been more concerned in press coverage of his boat rides and making statements that the arts and crafts sector is going to in some way grow our economy.

This against the backdrop of increased regional competition ladies and gentleman. Today is not going to be like tomorrow unless we are willing to buck up.

SO WHILST THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY IS CONCERNED ABOUT SUSTAINING THE LONG TERM GROWTH PROSPECTS OF OUR RM 740 BILLION ECONOMY THE DEPUTY MINISTER IS TALKING ABOUT ARTS AND CRAFTS?

So my question to the Deputy Minister is really simple:

TAK DA MALU KE?

This post is in retaliation to http://parpukari.blogspot.com/2009/11/nizar-dap-umno-akan-hancur-sekiranya.html.

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World Bank is Unpatriotic

Malaysia has lost edge as low-cost producer, says World Bank
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 — Malaysia risks missing its goal of becoming a high-income nation as it has lost its edge as a low-cost producer and lacks the investment to compete in more advanced industries, the World Bank warned today.

In its first country report on Malaysia, the Washington-based body also said that as a trade-dependent country, Malaysia should not unwind its RM67 billion in economic stimulus as that could choke off a nascent recovery.

“The economy seems to be caught in a middle-income trap - unable to remain competitive as a high-volume, low-cost producer, yet unable to move up the value chain and achieve rapid growth by breaking into fast growing markets for knowledge and innovation-based products and services,” it said.
WJK: The problem is the Deputy Minister in charge of MITI is not doing his work in helping to secure investment. He is more interested in bringing 50 journalists to watch him ride a boat than looking for investment from overseas or developing new markets. I hope somebody tells him to concentrate on his job, understand the export-import and FDI picture clearly and take his job more seriously. As his supporters are mostly uninformed and unable to comprehend statistical inferences, I can help out in explaining some concepts.

Private investment in Malaysia, which famously spurned advice and cash from the International Monetary Fund in 1998, is below that of virtually every other Asian country and has fallen dramatically since the Asian financial crisis.
WJK: This is the effect of large Government deficit. Its called the crowding out effect.


According to World Bank data, private investment in Malaysia fell to 12 per cent of gross domestic product in 2008 compared with 30 per cent prior to the Asian crisis.

The government that has ruled this country for 52 years has announced a series of economic reforms aimed at winning back foreign investment that increasingly finds a home in neighbouring Thailand and Indonesia.

However, portfolio and direct investment flows have been negative since the second quarter of 2008 and there have been few signs that investment has picked up in response to the government measures.

The World Bank noted that while Malaysia has a high proportion of high tech exports it served as a low-skilled assembler of imported parts “rather than a creator of technological and product innovations”.

One major limitation on moving up the economic value chain is Malaysia’s education system, which churns out tens of thousands of graduates who are ill-equipped for the kind of high-value work such as biotechnology that the government has identified as growth areas.
WJK:KJ can solve this.If he was in charge of the Education portfolio, he would be able to get some tangible results in the pre-secondary level within 2 yrs, in the pre university level by 4 years and at the university level by 6 years. Conservatively, there should be at least 3 local universities within the top 200, and UM should at least be 70th.

Education in Malaysia has become mired in a deep political row as the government recently switched to Malay language instruction for math and science from English, a move critics said was designed to appease its ethnic Malay voter base.

While private investment has plummeted, the government’s spending has risen sharply. Malaysia expects to rack up its biggest budget deficit in 20 years at 7.4 per cent of gross domestic product this year.

The government expects the economy to shrink 3 per cent this year and to grow by 3 per cent next year, although the World Bank was more optimistic.

“With East Asia leading the recovery and advanced economies showing progressive improvement, the Malaysian economy is projected to grow at 4.1 per cent in 2010, following a contraction of 2.3 per cent in 2009,” it said.

The bank was, however, less optimistic on the government’s plans to slash the budget deficit in 2010 to 5.6 per cent of GDP, forecasting that it would be 6.4 per cent of GDP. - Reuters
WJK:The Government must be tighter. Deficit will result in higher debt, higher interest payments and reduced opportunities for Bumiputera businesses

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The J in Wenger J Khairy

I just want to show the focus on the J shape for all 3 countries - Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. There was high growth in early 90s, followed by a sharp drop, and the sharper the drop in the 97-98, the higher the subsequent rise in the following years.

In the case of Thailand, the country had been wrecked by riots, Thaksin and all of that. In the case of Indonesia, we already lost count of the number of Presidents since Suharto.

The book I am reading is the J Curve.

This book ain't theory. Its fact.

I am just promoting the concept of the J Curve so that maybe I can make a small business doing "J Curve" consulting.

As to the possible "misinterpretation" of this chart, I blame Google!

PS: If I do go into J Curve Consulting Business, the Chairman and CEO has to be the one and the only Dato Sakmongkol. What I showed you is just a chart. For a fuller understanding , I refer you to the great man's article over here

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Porters 5 Forces And Mapping

Basics to understanding business. Porters 5 forces. Key things to note - Why is it that most GLC businesses in Malaysia are structured as monopolies?
The second point is that if its structured as monopolies, then consumers necessarily lose out because they do not get the benefits of competition. For example until Perodua came on board, we as consumers had only Proton as choice for affordable auto mobiles
The third point and perhaps the most important. Slideshare is an American product. Blogger is an American product. I can reliably click on the Export to Blogger function, and this entire process was integrated. It took me to my gmail account for log-in and then allowed me a place to add some comments. I hope companies like Rangkain Segar's Touch & Go payment system and the JPJ-MyKad can have similar kind of quality. Too often when we want to top up our T&G card or if we want to incorporate driving license information into our MyKad, the excuse is that the network is down or server is down rubbish.

Porters 5 Forces And Mapping

View more presentations from smehro.

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The New Growth Model (Prequel)

I read with interest the latest article by Tun Dr. Mahathir where he lambasted Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim on the latters handling of the Malaysian economy during the 1997-1998 crisis. In the article, TDM identified the following 2 decisions taken by the NEAC as being key in reviving the country during the peak of the crisis:
1. The Introduction of Capital Controls
2. The blocking of Malaysian shares traded under CLOB

Tun. Dr. Mahathir did not mince his words when he lambasted Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim as being to enamoured with Michel Camdessus, Managing Director of the IMF and James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank and whole heartedly proposing the IMF measures which was to
a)Reduce Government Expenditure to achieve a balanced budget
b)Raise short term interest rates
c)Cut the duration of loans extended in the banking system.
d) Seek IMF loans to recapitalize the banking system
or summarized as the bitter pill of the IMF.

The decisions favoured by Tun was at that time revolutionary and unorthodox. It was widely condemned by almost all economists except for one odd ball called Paul Krugman who favoured Capital controls and would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008.

In fact Paul Krugman penned an open letter to YAB Dato Seri Dr. Mahathir here.

To me, the issue facing Malaysia at that time was well captured in the Malay proverb "Di telan mati mak, di luah mati bapak." Most Malaysians seem to think that Capital Controls alone will be the solution to every single problem we face. This once again shows up the short term thinking that has plagued our country.

Now before I get ahead of myself, I certainly concur at that time, when the country was facing an imminent collapse in its economy, certainly it was the time to think in an unorthodox manner and no doubt the imposition of capital controls was the right decision. In fact, the foreign exchange market was so spooked by this that soon afterwards, the major speculative trades against the Yen, the HK dollar and other currencies that had been under attack collapsed spectacularly.

But I am a realist. Capital controls has a big price.

The price of capital controls is a lack of confidence of foreign investors in investing in Malaysia . When foreign investors park lets say $100 million USD in the local economy, it is first converted to RM 250 million or whatever the Dollar Ringgit exchange rate that holds at that point in time. The RM 250 million is then used for example buying up stocks and all manner of business. They however want the assurance that they can exist anytime, anyplace which means to sell the stocks back, covert the proceeds to US dollar and get the out.

Capital controls spooked this scenario. If you don't play ball, we'll take our money elsewhere kind of attitude.

In fact from 1999 to 2003, the nation had a net Financial deficit of RM 120 billion. This can mean a lot of things, partly it could mean foreign investors selling assets and moving the money out, partly it could mean Malaysians selling domestic assets and buying foreign stocks and bonds. But it is quite unlikely that it would be the latter, as the strict imposition of capital controls would make that an almost impossibility.

So this is the dilemma, adopt the IMF policy and Die tomorrow or impose Capital Controls and Die Another Day. In this scenario, it is better to leave wounded rather than die, so I 100% agree that given the circumstances, capital controls was the necessary course of action.

In medical speak, it was an emergency amputation of a limb. The limb was called relations with the International Capital Market. The body which was the Malaysian economy survived without the limb. This limb will take a long time to grow back.

However, could this entire episode be prevented? After all, rather than debate and argue between Dying via IMF or Dying another Day via Capital Controls, is there a way in which the country chuggs along without having to face this Emergency Room situations.

Which leads me to my point.

The decision is really up to you, my dear readers.

If we are happy just to understand issues on a surface point of view then we have no hope. And this would mean all issues, not only issues dealing with our economy, but also issues dealing with our society. If we make blanket statements like "Capital Controls saved the country","The Government is unfair to non Malays" or any issue that seeks to have a black and white answer, we will get no where.

This is because the world is painted in shades of gray.

Each issue has a positive and negative implication. To suggest a contrary opinion to a perceived fact is treasonous. We allow small minded individuals to paint and label one another in narrow paradigmns because society right now seems to think in absolute terms. Either your good or your bad.

This was perfectly phrased in the Star Wars phrase

"Only the Sith Think in Absolutes".

"Either your with me or your against me" kind of attitude.

If our society is really like that, then we can forget a new growth model. Because the only job we are fit for is to work in a manufacturing line, grow palm oil, dig for oil or to go and clear forests and build houses.

These jobs have a clear process.

That's all because anything else that requires higher order mental skills and critical analysis skills are just lacking.

You see to do the big jobs, to go and create the next Google or Facebook or truly international success story requires a constant balancing and rechecking on assumptions. Today this sounds right, tomorrow something else sounds right and this is rubbish. But the person who came out with the original idea is not ridiculed or condemned, in fact, he is the thought leader that will constantly seek out the best course of action.

In short what we require is thinking society. A society that adepts with how the game is played.

I will end this with a short narrative on football.

When Arsène Wenger came to town, he inherited a solid defence line up of Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Nigel Winterburn and Lee Dixon. He could concentrate on the offence and got players like Emaneul Petit, Nikolas Anelka and Patrick Viera. Very soon, he won the Premier League in style.

But the defensive line up was getting old and after they retired, Arsenal did not regain its former glory for some time. In the meantime, Arsène Wenger tried many different combinations to try and get the perfect formula for his new team. Most of it did not work, but Wenger did not settle for the classic English defensive type players, he always sought to get defenders who could play the ball and complement the attack.

And after 10 years, he has found the formula. Arsène Wenger always adapted and changed his players to suit what he felt was the playing style of the future which was thinking footballers as opposed to the boring classic counter attack and intimidate the referee style we find in Manchester.

Are we doing so?

Are we still stuck in the old mentality of just kicking the ball upfield and hoping to score a goal.

Then we will become no better than Burnley.

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