The Economics of Legal Plunder- 2

Who would it be if not syed mokhtar?

Was it better when it was not syed mokhtar?

May Allah SWT save us all from fitnah.

I received the above comment and felt sorry for this person. In a pamphlet titled Common Sense- Addressed to the inhabitants of America, Thomas Paine wrote in 1776 …a long habit of NOT thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT and (therefore) raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. 

So this person has cultivated a habit of NOT thinking it WRONG for one person, to monopolize everything simply because the monopolist represents his race. Instead he accepts it as CUSTOMARILY RIGHT for that one person to secure a monopoly. Now, if we tolerate this kind of thinking, one day, we will think nothing of that same person coming into our house and sleeping with our wife.  This is the kind of thinking borne of passivity and mental enslavement.  Plus, he thinks God is on his side. 

God is not an UMNO member. UMNO people have got this massively inflated sense of self importance that God is always on their side. 

As to the line of thinking which Thomas Paine mentioned- that is the kind of thinking that causes misery to the country because it excuses all the plundering and pillage. 

How did Syed Mokhtar and others like him get to be like this?  They got there through the use of government that enriched one group of people at the expense of another. Suppose all the population of Malaysia were Malays, would such a state of affairs be tolerated?  So, our proposition is, government should stay out of this looting business. 

Let’s see if we don’t see anything wrong here. What does it cost the UMNO government to build the Sungai Buloh MRT line with a distance of 150km? It costs the government a walloping USD17B (RM53B) or USD133M per km. compare this UMNOnised cost with the cost of China building its Beijing - Shanghai (Fastest train in the World @350km per hour) rail line covering a distance of 1,318km ONLY USD22B or USD16M per km. are the lines in the Sungai Buloh MRT made up of gold or some other precious metals?  

Are we ready to accept there is nothing wrong with our cost of USD133M/km to that of China at USD16M? 

It’s already happening. For the last 14 years, pornography and graphic descriptions of one person’s alleged sexual inclinations and trysts were brought into our living rooms. The ones watching include our children who will develop that habit of not thinking such purveyance of filth into our living rooms as WRONG but as something customarily RIGHT. 

What will this thing do to our nation? 

Let’s get back to the issue of Legal Plunder. The term Legal Plunder was used by the French economist- Frederic Bestiat in describing the use of government to secure riches for oneself. That is the policy that Najib is continuing to do. 

When he got into office as PM , he proclaimed that the age of big government is over. Now on the verge of losing power and having lost the plot to run this country- he says all development and improvements in this country are the result of promises fulfilled? Whose promises? Government?  If that is the case, then what have been achieved in the Pakatan states of Kelantan, Kedah, Penang, Selangor are the result of promises fulfilled by their respective governments. So why should the people continue to support BN but not Pakatan? 

We must reject this kind of passivity in our thinking because it leads people into blind acceptance and teaches them to excuse looting, plundering and incompetence. 

This must be evidently clear now- whenever a government assumes the power of discriminating between different groups of people, it becomes in actual fact, the arbiter of their prosperity.  So? Ask the cynic? So it reduces men from a dependence on their own exertions, to a dependence on the caprices of their government. That’s what UMNO is doing to the Malays in general- the government at their pleasure elevate one class of chosen people over another not chosen. Malays then become mere puppets of legislative cobbling and tinkering. What does that make UMNO? It gets to play God and that is why the above commentator invokes the UMNO God. 

Najib’s ETP for example is nothing more than an overall economic plan that is composed of several  adopted and re-packaged business plans of several chosen business partners who go on to become PDP= project delivery partners. What is he doing? He’s allowing the government to be used as a willing partner in the looting and plunder.  Its big government all over the place. It contradicts Najib’s pompous claim to end the age of big government hiding behind some liberal sounding initiatives. 

How does he continue exercising big government? He does so, by ensuring that all developments are licensed and supervised by government authorities. The age of big government is entrenched not loosened as he claimed. 

Big government remains as it does- BIG and Bigger and Biggest. 

Look at the transformation of government itself.  The GTP is just cobbling and tinkering here and there of government institutions giving the impression that something radical are being undertaken there. At other times, big government is given respectability by the indefinable term smart partnership. The only thing smart about partnering with the government is that some people get the chance to become rent seekers. The GTP is just tidying up of loose ends which were not properly covered by government authoritism. 

Najib thinks he can fool the people with a stomach-churning mix of acronyms which mean nothing to ordinary Malaysian. BR1M become Beli Rakyat 1 Malaysia. People have a different understanding of UMNO’s various acronyms. TOL becomes Tindas Orang Lalu. You get oppressed traversing the country’s highways. The construction of highways at one time was the favorite and shortest cut way for crony companies to make tons of money. Hence PLUS becomes Pantang Lalu, Ulur Selalu.

The Plus highway costing RM 3 billion became a RM6 billion project. It has since collected RM 24 billion in revenues and government compensation.  The government has paid RM38 billion as compensation to toll operators so that they would not increase toll charges. 

UMNO survives on an elaborate patronage system where crony companies do business and give money to UMNO leadership. UMNO’s strategy of running the country’s economy is not dissimilar to running a protection racket. The only way to stop it is to replace the government that supports the system, no two ways about it. 

It’s up to the people to evaluate. The economic strategy of picking and choosing winners from a limited pool as engines of growth is still in operation and indeed continued with gusto by Najib and gang.