Malaysia Plan number 11.
The number 11 is a favourite of a certain warrior of Bugis descent. It is also the symbol for a pair of Malay/Muslim tombstones. I hope the 11MP does not die under the weight of its own spin.
Our citizens,
especially Malays are not keen to analyse the spin that’s in the 11MP. They prefer
talking about palace intrigues like in the olden days.
I am too, especially on the hot issue of Najib not turning up in a dialogue session created by his own supporters. In a previous article , I have already warned of Najib's penchant of transporting pliant and ready to hallelujah people to the venue. Sadly, I have been proven right.
Unfortunately my thoughts on that issue must wait. The believability of the 11MP is more important.
Unfortunately my thoughts on that issue must wait. The believability of the 11MP is more important.
People prefer
talking about the Mahathir-Najib war of attrition; which goes to show we must
have our politics right. And politics is all about placing the correct people
in power.
At the moment,
many believe we have the wrong person in power and he is not trustworthy. The root of this distrust is
Najib’s throwing out the principle of accountability. In the case of 1MDB, he
decided on many things and hid them from the cabinet until things got out of
control. He did not feel he ought to be accountable to his cabinet colleagues.
Because of that, collective responsibility is an overrated virtue without an important qualification. Collective responsibility
can only be exercised when there is collective accountability practised
first. The person who destroyed this idea should be the one to leave the
cabinet. That person is Najib.
I have said before that when one quotes his
bloodline when putting up argument, he has no more substance to offer.
So Najib has
Bugis blood- is that supposed to mean something special? With Bugis blood,
Najib can dismiss accountability? The leader and government who/that forgets accountability
is at war with us. And we are many, he is one. We throw out such a leader.
Will the Malays
die if Najib or whoever else from UMNO having the same mind-set is not leader
of this country? Islam did not die when Prophet Muhammad passed away.
I have said this
before too. There is one Malay UMNO out of every 6 Malays. If one UMNO Malay is
to disappear, there are 5 other Malays who continue to live without UMNO. Think
about this.
The blood that
insists on honesty, on good governance, on seeking justice, meting out punishment
to wrong doers, which stands for honest and fair government is more important. That
kind of blood is inside many of us and many of us is more than one Najib.
Take a closer
look at the 11MP. I am saying this is a plan of the top 20%, for the top 20% by
the top 20%. If it’s done by the top
20%, would the interests of the
bottom 40% be rigorously thought for
them?
This idea of raising
the income and wealth of the bottom 80%, not just the bottom 40% has been in
the Malaysia Plans before. So what is there to shout about it in the 11MP?
I am suspicious
about the number of this group being 2.7 million people. How did we define the
bottom 40%? What is the poverty income line?
The PIL
generally accepted is 50% of the household median income. Was it RM5000? Or as
stated by the 11MP, using the figure in 2014, it was RM4585. That would mean
the PIL used is around 2300.
If RM2300, how
do you explain those people who got BR1M-ED number 7 million people? That would
have meant 7 million people earned below RM3000. Does this mean, that actually
the government recognised that the PIL should be RM3000?
If the government insists that RM 2300 is the PIL, and the population of this group is 2.7 million, how do we categorise the 4.3 million people who were given BR1M? Can we say the 4.3 million people (7m-2.7m) were bribed by Najib and so the BR1M is actually an acronym for Beri Rasuah 1 Malaysia?
If the government insists that RM 2300 is the PIL, and the population of this group is 2.7 million, how do we categorise the 4.3 million people who were given BR1M? Can we say the 4.3 million people (7m-2.7m) were bribed by Najib and so the BR1M is actually an acronym for Beri Rasuah 1 Malaysia?
So how can we
reconcile that the bottom 40% all of whom qualify for BR1M is only 2.7 million
people when the government brags that 7 million people are to receive BR1M?
Putrajaya must
come clean on this. Don’t put PIL so low, that it catches the barest minimum as
poor people. PIL is poverty income line- a level of income below which, a
person is categorised as abject poor.
If one sets the
bar at RM1 per month, maybe only one out of 10 people earns that much. Hence we
declare to the world, we have eradicated poverty.
But set the bar
at RM5, we find probably 6 people fall under that line. So the decision to put
up which bar is a political choice not an economic one.
Which brings me
to this important point. Market forces do shape the outcome in our social arrangements-
who gets richer, who gets poorer, how income and wealth are distributed, who controls
what and how much. People get appointed to their income and wealth positions by
market forces, but the market forces are themselves shaped by politics.
The 11MPP is not
clear on this. What is the PIL used? RM800 for peninsula and RM1100 for east
Malaysia? Putting the line so low, would give the effect of placing so many out
of abject poverty. Using a low PIL allows the government to claim that it has
successfully reduced poverty.
Hurrah!
The median
income used by wahid Omar some time ago was RM5000. I invited him to come to
Raub, be at the pasar minggu and tell the people, your median household income
is RM5000. I want him to be present so that the fish mongers, the vegetable sellers,
the meat sellers and others can have the opportunity to throw stuff at his
face.That's participatory democracy for you!
You can’t even
define who’s in the B40. We cannot just place people outside or inside arbitrarily
without recourse to some definite criteria.
I am of course suspicious
of the whole numbers game. I can’t find the 2014 statistics at the DOS or EPU
portals yet the 11MP uses 2014 figures liberally. And as these numbers are
given by the same people of the same mental quality as those who can’t differentiate between
units and hard cash, this makes the statistics even more suspicious. It’s a cause
for worry.
We can nit-pick
on many things. The targeted USD15, 000 per capita income. In real or nominal terms?
The poor don’t care as long there is more money in their hands.
We all know
about giving education and raising skills and all that so that these will lead
to productivity. This strategy is built upon the old economic thinking that the
x factor which explains differentiation in wealth and income is marginal
productivity. This idea wants us to believe that whoever has special skills and
has something which is of value will earn higher incomes.
The market
system ought to reward economic agents in accordance to that principle; but it
does not. The reason it does not is because government interferes and tinkle in
the market system in the wrong ways. They appoint wealth to those least qualified
to earn it only because they have the political power to do so.
The Plan talks
about the delivery system. This is a fancy term which simply means execution
and implementation. The plan fails if the implementation is done by corrupt
people. The Plan fails if the government forgets it is accountable to the
people.
12 comments:
Hurrah!
The median income used by wahid Omar some time ago was RM5000. I invited him to come to Raub, be at the pasar minggu and tell the people, your median household income is RM5000. I want him to be present so that the fish mongers, the vegetable sellers, the meat sellers and others can have the opportunity to throw stuff at his face.That's participatory democracy for you!
I LOVE THIS POINT SIR.
What? Only now people see that Najib is a disaster for Malaysia?
When he first naik takhta, MANY MANY people already know we're screwed. Do you recall the front-page picture that showed him going home for lunch, saying that he will just pop in, to change his clothes, and how his wife fawned over how hard he works?
On the dining table was this sumptuous spread of food. Mind you, this is just for a quick pop-in for lunch.
Right. Spin then, spin now, spin forever more.
We are ROYALLY screwed.
Zaid put it plain and simple - Malays are lazy to think. I have personally seen them clapping and cheering when an UMNO leader makes a promise of good times and good fortunes for the race. They clap and cheer when the leaders promise then heaven and earth. The clap and cheer when they are told that only UMNO can protect race, religion and royalty.
They don't think. They accept corruption. They accept poverty when their leader roll and sleep on piles of money.
It's just the same with the Malays in PAS. They think Hadi and Haron Din are their prophets.
1.0 PAS IS NO DIFFERENT FROM THE ZIONIST YAHUD IN ISRAEL. CANNOT BE TRUSTED AND DECEITFUL.
DAP AND PK SHOULD HAVE KICKED PAS OUT OF PKR A LONG TIME AGO BEFORE MORE DAMAGE CAN BE DONE. NOW PAS WANTS TO HANG ON TO RIDE ON PKR TO GARNER VOTES IN THE NEXT GE.IF THEY SUCCEED THE WILL DITCH PKR AND RUN TO UMNO TO FORM THE UNITY GOV. THATS WHAT HADI WAS UP TO IN THE LAST ELECTION BUT FOR NIK AZIZ. AHMAD AWANG PUT A STOP IN PERAK. NIK AZIZ PUT A STOP TO IT IN SELANGOR.
2.0 MALAYS ARE AS STUPID AS SHARIZAT'S COWS.
It's amazing how the Najib regime kept coming out with figures that are plucked from the air. Whosoever his economists are, they don't seem to have the ability to add. I guess its because they told so many lies that they actually believe them themselves.
And did you not notice who was sitting at the head of the table?
Tunggu Apa Zaid ibrahim, Samad, Mat SABU, Nizar....isi Borang Keahlian DAP masuk....Kuatkan lagi Team Melayu Malaysia A1 dalam DAP??
Pakatan Sudah Habis tapi Generasi Melayu Berdikari dan Bermaruah Masih Hebat...Ayuh.... Ini Kali Lah!!.>>Tak Payah tunggu Anwar.... Najib - Zahid dan Hissapmuddin dah Buat UMRAH... Muhiddin akan Bersara.... Ekonomi Negara Malaysia Mampus...Lebih banyak orang Melayu akan berada dalam kesusahan keran Bilangan Orang Melayu RAMAI.... USA$1 =$4 Ringgit..... $1 Singapura = $3.25 Ringgit....Salah Siapa?? UMNO-BN mesti di Kuburkan dan guna Cement dan reinforce Steel untuk Makam UMNO-BN!!
We no longer have the politics to make the economics of 11MP successful.
For all the shameless mainstream spin by the Umno leadership, people have already withdrawn all trust in the N government. Except for the three thousand or less putting on their powdered faces of support for photo opportunities with view to the next set of Umno-spawned kickbacks from projects funded out of taxes paid by long-suffering rakyat, the millions of other lowly members are disenchanted in the same way they have been disenfranchised.
Without widespread national trust, there will be disbelief in the numbers churned to show the economy will remain fundamentally healthy and on track to achieve V2020; as a result, more investors will shy away, and programmes will not be followed with the energy and focus needed for the last leg towards 2020, a vision now a mirage but for the shifting of the per capita income goalpost that is said to signify developed status however by mere aggregation of incomes without doing any justice to the way incomes have been lopsidedly distributed down the pyramid of the populace.
Today that statistical distortion is further magnified by price hike pressures from the GST regime and it shows the Umno government did not pay heed to better counsel that prices will go up beyond six percent because the market distribution system here is layered with no equivalent redemption for the final end-consumer.
The corrupt inside that 20 percent of Umno destroys all of Umno in much the same way the full entity of Umno as 20 percent of the Malay populace is destroying the entire Malay community, what more the whole country. Same ratio of destruction.
2/
Why is there no more progressive politics in the country?
On the one hand we have a trouble-making Umno engaged in internecine war between two camps cut from the same mischief-making cloth, fashioned by the same hands of corruption, moulded by the same apa-salah mindset of unbridled no-conscience power chase. As a group they have made some progress. Before, they were all half-past six politicians. Today, three-quarter past six. All tiga-suku.
On the other hand, we have a group of pre-pubescent i-have-claws luminaries who can lie in the name of the Almighty and yet petulantly crave for ranking respect by sheer expedient of ignoring the principles behind the reasons why their leadership was criticized.
If a leadership cannot take constructive criticism that unearths shallow mentality and low emotional quotients, how can the leadership become better enough to lead properly and progressively for all, especially when everyone knows the constitution does not provide for any federal government to subrogate secular law to theocratic law not subscribed by all? It is bad enough as it is for the present batch of judges on the secular bench to recuse themselves from their sworn oaths to uphold federal justice whenever they encounter provincial cases where theocratic issues are presented.
And here we are lima tahun to Visi 2020 but over the bodies of the progressives. That issue is just a feint for the bigger cause of galvanizing unthinking support towards overturning the very consensus that had laid the foundation of this nation. But the last anyone checked, that nation is still diverse, multi-racial, plural, multi-faith. Fundamentally, rich in humanity. So isn't it stupid to test Him over something that was not even scripted for this age and place in order to win votes that will only splinter off the two fixed-deposit states?
So these two groups of our Melayu brigands and braggarts are locking horns over a turf destroyed by one, inundated by the other. And some people are still snarky whenever such remarks are made. They sneer at complaints and ask for solutions. But in all honesty, are they saying the solutions must still be Umno-branded or PAS-burnished when all already know no real solution can ever be found from the cause of a problem?
3/
There was one time the Saudis were a wheat-exporter. They wanted to be self-sufficient in food. It was indeed a blessing finding that cache of subterranean water reservoir. They mined it and lost no time to pay their farmers five times the global market price for their produce; of course the transport fuel was also made free. In no time, the water reservoir was exhausted and they have returned to the desert.
A developed status for an economy is not what happens in the country alone. More than infrastructure and buildings and farms, it is what happens inside the minds of its citizens. Because if they are right-minded, they will ask themselves first how do we sustain progress. And then act on their reasoning. No point chasing self-syioking single successes at ruinous cost.
Our policy-makers have no long-horizon vision. Same with the Saudis. And part of our foreign policy is to beat a path to them? If the retort is that we want more haj quota so that more can fulfill the moral obligation, how does that sync with selling TH a radioactive asset that would denude its fund in the same way Felda's share assets have been depleted to the utmost pain of farmers who have borrowed money to buy them?
4/
The ways things are going, the 11MP should exchange place of importance with the annual Auditor-General's report. The AuG report tells the story of official corruption and crass incompetence. The 11MP is just a bunch of nice-to-read's cooked up and assembled in air-conditioned climes by people divorced from reality on the ground. One is fact, the other fiction. Why continue to sell spin when what the country needs is a massive dose of reality so that the last wake-up call is applied before this nation is wheeled into the final ICU to be delivered last rites by the buy-one-free-one package of N and H?
Our industries are not competitive. Agriculture is down and dependent on foreign workers. Manufacturing is up but the figures hide the fact we are still semi-finished assemblers so that the value added is just enough to pay workers wages less capital depreciation to the benefit of foreign MNCs. Services as in tourism is hit by tailspin of natural as well as man-made disasters such as a security which cannot even defend a dialogue in the very home ground of the country's so-called biggest politikus party, moreover a dialogue on a topic in which the only solution is to sell state letrik assets to foreigners in contravention of the very security that is to protected. And most of the rakyat have only an SPM but however it they can only achieve the most humiliating scores in international tests. Mining is kaput although the Umno government is sharpening its knife to raise the prices of fuel in order to add to its GST ripping in order to achieve a higher national income in order to say hurray we are financially independent to be a developed state.
Meanwhile most of the rakyat die the slow death of economic atrophy spiced by political disgust. Some will jump over bridges. Others will hang themselves. The young - what future have they got? They have been tooled to not be able to engage profitably with the world. The middle-aged - what are they facing? Mountains of debts until they have to take on multiple jobs in an economy that is actually going nowhere once the spin is stopped. The old - whither their last days? Fraught with worry, dismayed by the state of a society sundered by injustice and calumny. And to cap it all - as the currency weakens, prices will rise even faster, furthermore magnified by the GST regime which yet remains stoutly defended by one who can't fry an egg and by the other who racistly blames chinese traders. Those who have not yet hung themselves.
And yet we have this capital suggestion to reproduce more because lo and behold the population will soon age too much fifteen years after 2020. Will the said ministeress care to exchange place with one farmer's wife? In good months which are getting rarer these days, the farmer makes about a thousand four but for a family of eight plus one infant. The six children have no education and amuse themselves amongst the trees; they will have no future save selling pau's and nasi lemak by roadsides. Both parents have no education and from the lines on their faces, much cause for worry. But because they are young, they didn't see it coming. The baby contracted a fever. It was ignored. The baby died. They asked for a loan so that they could hold a kenduri in keeping with custom. One load piled into one grief piled into a tragedy which could have been avoided.
Welcome to Vision 2020.
5/5
The political situation now is dicey. N has become the first PM whose word no one believes. Provided his elongated pinocchio nose would allow him to get past the door, it would be more appropriate if he downgrades himself to be foreign minister and leave in his new jetplane(http://is.gd/O9FkKA); except for scandals financial and flesh remaining unanswered, no one misses him anyway.
And none of the others in his cabinet is worth the name tags on their lapels. 1MDB has a coal-fired thermal plant but the coal is overpriced and all know why. Better to use them instead for firewood, these jokers of N's wooden cabinet. Mhy is no better so shaft the suggestion that he takes over just because the grise (greased?) eminence said so by allusion to hierarchy. Instead, buang-lah semua and half of peace will reign again in this tired land. What can Mhy and his hangers-do that have already not been done by N and his hangers-on? Go any lower than ground zero and one can smell the syaitanic odor of sulfur, no?
The very fact M hinted for Mhy is therefore enough concern for all not just N to be wary of what's coming next. After all, M in capitalizing on the 1MDB exposure proffered not one word of thanks or gratitude to the Sarawak Report or the DAP/PKR team for taking the initiative much earlier. If the Opposition could be happy he has taken up cudgels on the issue, why couldn't he have given credit to them for having first sounded the issue? It goes to show the Opposition have more honest statesmen who are wholly concerned for the country and the rakyat than him with 22 year ministerial experience who remains concerned only for a party of his own taint that has long become rotten to the core. WHY does he continue to defend Umno when sunlight has already shone on its guttersnipe scarecrowed face? is already an answer in search of its question.
The other dicey bit which is central to these closing comments is Hadi and his ulamaks. They are stoned dreamers. It is only now they are facilely admitting they are not interested in Putrajaya but who will believe that? Let's assume one can still take their word for it, if that is at all possible. Then they have become a complete liability to Pakatan. If they are not for Pakatan, then they should not insist on still wanting to stay on in Pakatan. Their staying on will make it impossible for PKR and DAP to operate in the two fixed deposit states of Umno which is as good as closing down the one chance the rakyat have for real change to this tired land.
But that is not all. Remembering Perak, what is to prevent a replay of another sleight-of-hand at seizing power from a Selangor Assembly hung by and on flighty votes by the thinnest margin? Overnight, the richest state in the land can be seized and someone will be getting the kidex contract revived again as reward.
Does anyone think if Umno gets Selangor with the help of PAS, Hadi won't extract a deal that will destroy not just the plural society of the state but all of Malaysia by 2020?
After all, if his party can take exception to people criticizing the host of the house for saying the issue they are selling is not from a house but a slaughter-house aka abbatoir, what is to keep PAS from thinking like that again to ramp through other arguments in the mould of a Zahid, Noh, Ibali and Zaik?
With only five years to 2020, we are reduced to this situation. Does anyone believe it is still possible to be enlightened, wise, compassionate, honest, fair, just, prosperous and progressive?
Our Malays destroyed this nation. Only the shell of the past will echo into what's left of the future already pawned off today.
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