Najib's New Economic Model- Enrich the elite, impoverish the Rest.

Nowadays when UMNO leaders claimed they are fighting for Malay interests, those claims sound hollow. After 57 years of UMNO rule, the top 20% of all races have entrenched their economic stranglehold. This is reflected by the more than proportionate increase in their mean monthly income. The Malays in particular should take note.

The top 20% of Malays earned RM10, 666 a month while the bottom 40% earned RM1686. The bottom 40% and those outside the most minimal income bracket eke out a daily living. Welfare assistance of RM200-400 does help as do BR1Ms- the politically charged hand-outs that ease the pain temporarily.  But this beneficence and acts of care are quickly gobbled up by increasing cost of living.

The basic principle of placing the wealth creating resources directly in the hands of the people who matter most is not there. Each time the government come out with a plan of creating wealth through levels of intermediaries.

 Education is not free up to university level. The kid going to a polytechnic in Kuantan has to pay close to RM800 as initiation fees. The parents earn RM400 a month. So they go asking around for hand-outs. More than 100 thousand graduates are now unemployed and the government never publish these statistics. The growing army of unemployed include not only the less trained and skilled but also engineering graduates and science graduates.

Affordable housing is out of reach by ordinary people. The PR1MA people make hype of its efforts to build affordable homes but the units are pre-distributed among party adherents. Land is difficult to obtain while petty leaders get land ever so easily. The MB of Perak could easily gave the state UMNO youth head more than 30acres of land but find it very difficult to give 1 acre to ordinary applicants.

This is in essence the New Economic Model of Najib. It continues the preferential treatment on the preferred and selected individuals- of all races. We should kick out this MLM type of government which is no different from the duplicitous PONZI schemes and no different from our local get rich schemes of Pak Man Telo or Tuhan Harun.

The UMNO elites accompanied by their pet poodles from other BN component parties, go to bed and cavort with the select few- the Malays flying themselves out and into this country on recently acquired private jets, the Rozalis, the Syed Mokhtars, the Rahid Manafs, the AP holders, the monopoly holders, the license tengkus, the Chinese Hongs- the YTLs, the Kam Pohs, the Lew Kee Sins, the YTLs, the Danny Tans. The Malay political elites, the once jaga keretas and car washers, the once cooking gas carriers, the once carpet sellers dine and wine at the Hong Leong Penthouses.

Inside parliament only those UMNO MPs wishing to make a name for themselves are talking about the plight of marginalised Malays. Only in order to show and demonstrate that UMNO is fighting for the cause of Malays. It seems part of the required protocol- to utter something that are politically correct to stay ideologically in line; the reality is- these are part of the sham and hypocrisy on which UMNO thrives and survives.

It needs to champion the cause in order to validate its increasingly fragile pole position as the voice of Malay interests. The people are equally increasingly disillusioned with UMNO’s hypocrisy about its commitment to really transform Malay economically.

The empty slogans do not resonate forcefully anymore; the great ideas and vision packaged in the forms of various acronyms- NEM, ETP, GT, NKRA, are meaningless to the people who are facing economic hardships. They are useless to people who have to pay for a higher cost of living- hemmed from all sides by the increasing prices of foodstuffs, of everyday needs.  Real incomes are eroded by rising costs.

Next: Najib’s New Economic Model- did he instruct UDA to sell Pudu Jail Land to Ecoworld?