is that the book you are reading?
momo- the studious catOur family cat MOMO has recently turned into a very playful pet. She has recently developed a liking to jump on top of my study table as though supervising what's being written. Here she is with some deep-in-thought poses.
In a previous essay, I mentioned the name of Junichiro koizumi. He was a popular figure and came out from nowhere to be Japan’s PM in 2001. He won the LDP a landslide victory in 2005. He has been PM since 2001 and started reforms on the economy and bureaucracy. He was succeeded by Abe as the LDP’s constitution then did not allow its president to serve more than two 3-year terms. Abe’s tenure as PM was short-lived and he was succeeded by Taro Aso san who led LDP to its most devastating drubbing by the DPJ.
In terms of ambitions, PM Najib’s premiership is similar to Koizumi. Like Koizumi PM Najib has promised and started to carry out several economic reforms. Very early on, he has discarded the FICC and decreed that from henceforth investors need not satisfy the requirement of having bumi partners to set up business. They could own 100% equity. He has scrapped of the ministry responsible for entrepreneurial development; a ministry looked upon as strategic by the Malay community. Most recently, he has done away with the 30% equity requirement inherited from the NEP. That ruling says that a company en route to listing must have as a qualification at least 30% of its equity owned by Malays. PM Najib has publicly revealed that RM52 billion of equity held by Bumiputeras was sold off leaving a paltry RM 2 billion. In other words, he has shown some fortitude to break away from old school economic policies. By old school we mean, break way from an inherited past.
Koizumi wanted to liberalise the Japanese economy from being big government-centric to more free market-centric. The Japanese in 2005 knew these reforms will not yield immediate benefits but these will come over a longer period. Koizumi wanted to follow the economic route charted by America’s Reagan or Britain’s Maggie Thatcher.
In that sense, PM Najib treads on similar paths. By announcing his reforms, he has indicated that he intends to disengage from big government-centric policies to more free market policies. His ‘government knows best is over’ declarations sums it all up.
PM Najib must be careful on these areas. The scrapping off of the MECD for example was regarded as ill timed. Not that the ministry did outstanding things for the Malays in business or anything. It existence nevertheless provided the escape route and a sense of comfort and assurance. If not for anything else, it’s the comforting thought associated with having a ministry specially assigned to look after nascent Malay business interests that’s important. PM Najib doesn’t have to resuscitate the ministry; he could for example set up another ministry with a bolder name. It’s symbolic significance will arrest the further downslide of UMNO.
PM Najib must also watch out for another lesson from Koizumi san. Koizumi reforms were cut short by mediocre successors. PM Najib’s political and economic moves may be frustrated by sub standard generals. PM Najib’s deregulations won’t benefit the public until much later- but do you see his people and UMNO VPs groping going around winning people over? The deregulations are essentially good because they undercut the resources that have brought benefit largely to the selected few. As I have said in previous essays, many aspects of the NEP’s implemented policies were in practice giant Ponzi schemes benefiting the super 30.
PM Najib’s UMNO can avoid LDP’s fate by doing 2 things:
1. He can continue by carrying out what Koizumi did not do.
2. Carry out preemptive strikes by adopting what BPJ wants to do or exposing the fallacies of BJP’s policies.
The second thing first. What has BPJ promised to do?
The Democratic Party offers a dramatically different platform. Party leader Yukio Hatoyama recently delivered a stinging attack on "market fundamentalism." Instead of this "U.S.-led" approach, he argued that "we must work on policies that regenerate the ties that bring people together, that take greater account of nature and the environment, that rebuild welfare and medical systems, that provide better education and child-rearing support, and that address wealth disparities."
Although basically populist in tone, these promises resonated well with the Japanese public enshrouded with an ABL mentality (Anything But LDP). Japan might become the first country to implement a serious, post-meltdown economic policy that will humanize de-regulated market system and drive a stake through casino capitalism.
The DPJ wants to move Japan away from a corporate-centric economic model to one that focuses on helping people. They have proposed an expensive array of initiatives: cash handouts to families and farmers, toll-free highways, a higher minimum wage and tax cuts. The estimated bill comes to 16.8 trillion yen ($179 billion) when fully implemented starting in the 2013 fiscal year.
The party has said it plans to cut waste and rely on untapped financial reserves to fund their programs. The key difference is the Liberal Democrats' spending on public projects and infrastructure, but the Democrats promises to spend on family and education.
Most right thinking Japanese think that all these are balderdash. But they are accepted by the majority motivated by undisguised dissatisfaction with the status quo. The sclerotic LDP presides over a patronage system that no longer delivers the goods and an economy that has been hit hard by the global recession. In February, the former LDP finance minister gave a drunken press conference in Rome in February, proving what many secretly suspected: the people in charge of the Japanese economy are not in their right minds. Prime Minister Taro Aso, his poll numbers edging ever southwards, has tried to revive his fortunes by accusing the Democratic Party of insufficient patriotism for not displaying the Japanese flag and even, improbably, cutting up the flag to make their own party symbol. In other words just say some foolish things. Here for example, the severed cow head reflects the stupidity of the PKR government in Selangor.
Japanese support for the Democratic Party is not all protest politics. There is enthusiasm for the opposition's promise to clean out the Aegean stables of Japanese politics. The party says it will ban corporate political donations, restrict the ability of retired bureaucrats to find lucrative jobs in industries they regulated and ban hereditary seats in parliament. It is also promising child support payments to cash-strapped families and more social security funding, both popular policies in a country with a rapidly aging population.
Read more...A long time friend since schooldays sent me this footage about a woman of substance. Ignorance of the language does not prevent anyone from understanding the profound messages in that short audio visual narration. My thanks to Mohamad bin Yaakob for his kind gesture which I thought I would share with readers. Thank you kindly, Mat.
I am very thankful to be given some material on Japan's LDP defeat, by a well respected UMNO veteran. He views with great concern at political developments in this region and their possible ramifications on our own political landscape. I am adding just a little bit in this area. This essay is a first installment of a fuller version. The LDP which ruled Japan for 54 years is broken. It just lost massively in the recently concluded Japanese elections. LDP's politics is founded on 3 pillars:- Japan's LDP's exit is similar to the fate of ruling parties in France, Italy and India. Japan's election on Sunday marked the end of an era that started not long after World War Two and saw Japan rise from the ashes of defeat to a global economic power. Japan's rise to economic prominence is therefore closely associated with the LDP. Given such association, almost any Japanese LDP politician can't be faulted if he claims that LDP is Japan's destiny. To us in Malaysia, LDP's eminence and its position as bedrock of Japan's destiny finds an almost surreal parallel to UMNO's role and possibly future fate. What is disturbing is that those people around PM Najib are continuing on a business as usual mode. Yet, up to a time, there's not much anyone can do or object, to any UMNO politicians' claim that UMNO is Malaysia's destiny. No one has therefore pressed the panic button. Let me put it in street talk- hey yo! UMNO can suffer the same fate. It seems to me UMNO is led more by people who are street-smart at a time when such specialty is no longer suited to a changing battle ground. The battle ground has shifted to the winning of the mind. If PM Najib thinks he doesn't need upstairs-smart UMNO generals, he is clearly mistaken. Just compare the election war machinery of the PKR. They are managed by intelligent generals compensating perhaps Anwar's overrated intellectualism. In all the by elections thus far (excluding that in Sarawak) we, UMNO have lost. Their election machinery with a retinue of sympathetic and supportive alternative media luminaries will be there ahead, exploiting every issue available using the almost ubiquitous electronic apparatuses. During the Kuala Terengganu by election for example, not less than 5 SMS messages were sent to ALL the Malay teachers in KT accusing UMNO of abandoning the cause of Bahasa Melayu. UMNO is always short in terms of issues. In the recent Permatang Pasir, UMNO was caught with its pants down revealing not a horse's filly but a baby carrot. Thus UMNO was preoccupied with defending a felled candidate who can't be defended. The by election made UMNO looked very silly. UMNO people achieve full KPI marks in terms of hurling personal abuses, vile languages, ill mannered characterization and name callings. The PKR election machine is superior to UMNO in many ways. One, they are directed by respectably intelligent people. Zulkefli Ahmad the MP of Kuala Selangor is worth watching and studied. UMNO on the other hand thinks it can survive with just the hail fellow well met characters to win elections. It can be very off-putting and even revolting to have FLCE (failed LCE) people come before you and put forth arguments or trying to lecture you on the future of Malaysia. The UMNO leadership cannot afford to be filled up with below average material. PM Najib must abandon the ill-advised notion that UMNO needs the Syed Razak( former Kedah MB known for his hail fellow well met personality) personages in order to convince a thinking public. The myopic UMNO people have NOT sighted the panic button. In terms of grey matter just compare UMNO's secgen to PKR's son of Hashim Gera, PAS's secgen, DAP's secgen. I mean no disrespect to him, but his kind is less relevant today. The UMNO information chief is a laughing stock even among UMNO members. UMNO people are just fed up about his self congratulatory recollections of how he came appointed as information chief and deputy minister. PM Najib must abandon this addiction with sub standard generals if UMNO were to stay relevant. The other side can offer better products. National politics is not a carbon copy of Pekan politics. Here, the UMNO division can still afford to have a former time taker be its secgen and office boy is permanent chairman. At national level, if the same standard is replicated, UMNO is marking time. If UMNO is Malaysia's LDP then, DPJ is PKR led PR. It was formed some 10 years ago which is also similar to PKR. Indeed, the PKR people can even claim that relative to DPJ, PKR is more substantial that DPJ. In Malaysia DPJ- the party that humbled and devastated Koizumi's LDP is almost unknown. Its leader is no Anwar Ibrahim- our own political maverick whose overdriving political ambitions are matched by an equally overarching grab for world attention. Anwar Ibrahim seeks and needs world attention and is in turn sought out by the world which is always on the side of the perceived and victimized underdog. You see, the crafty bugger will continue to be relevant and be always in people's mind if he continues to milk the idea of being an underdog and victimized. Stupid UMNO goons are playing his game. The usual tricks of demonizing Anwar and vilification of the man for questionable but yet unproven sexual deviances are so very passé. The people are so fed up with the nauseating pornographic debauchery dished out by UMNO apparatchiks and functionaries. The 24/7 caustic and insanely abusive language poured out by overtime working UMNO's propaganda storm troopers with the usual artillery of the vilest of language and outlandish salacious tales are alienating the people further from UMNO. Back to Japan. Now the LDP tastes the same bitter fruit as paramount parties in other countries whose voters decided a few decades in power for one party were enough. There is not even a rat's ass of a chance the BJP can fulfill its outlandish welfare-ish ideas. How will they finance such utopian ideas? The Japanese public knows this, but the prevailing sentiment now is anything-but LDP. The same sentiment is building up in Malaysia. The sentiment is anything but UMNO. The circumstances in each country were different, but the democratic impulse was similar and the result much the same. In 1981 Francois Mitterrand became the first leftist president of France since the Fifth Republic was created in 1957. France then trembled as this imperious socialist did the impossible by sharing power with his Gaullist rivals. The Indian National Congress spearheaded that nation's independence movement and then became the dominant political party led by the Nehru-Gandhi family. Eventually corruption allegations caught up with Congress and it had to yield power first to Hindu nationalists, then to a coalition of upstart leftists and regional parties. The world watched sullenly at the sight of chastened ex-Congress leader P.V. Narasimha Rao standing in the dock in a Delhi court accused of corruption charges, for which he was later acquitted. Capitalizing on Cold War tensions, Italy's Christian Democratic Party was that country's ruling party for almost 50 years until corruption allegations felled it, too, in the early 1990s. Now Japan's voters have dealt a staggering blow to the LDP, an amalgam of factions which except for a few months has held power for more than half a century. The ruling party loss ended a three-way partnership between the LDP, big business and bureaucrats that turned Japan into an economic powerhouse after the country's defeat in World War Two. That strategy foundered when Japan's "bubble" economy burst in the late 1980s and growth has stagnated since. Our government has recently revised our economic contraction rate from a bigger minus value to a lower minus vale. Hello- it's still a negative growth and nothing to be jumping up and down about. Just study the implications of the emboldened section of the above paragraph.A party that claims a natural right to rule since the end of WW2.A dominant bureaucracyCooperation turned into Collusion with big business interests.
The uninformed can get easily swayed when fed with continuous deliberate misinformation. This is my initial reaction to the articles being written on the so called Pekan Formula. Perhaps the first website to start Molotov-cocktailing the concept is the site known as PahangDaily dotcom. An article about the same appeared in Malaysia Today too. Specifically, the many essays written thus far, gave the impression that the Pekan formula is nothing but a political ploy to add voters to PM Najib. They say the increased popularity of the PM is due to (a) relocation or army camps from election areas not previously in Pekan to Pekan (b) the resettlement of aliens into Pekan. They went out to cite the case of Kem Tentera Batu 10 in Kuantan which was absorbed into Pekan beginning the 2004 elections, the resettlement of Rohingyas and others into an area called Sungai Miang in Pekan and now, the creation of an auxiliary army camp also in Sungai Miang. The camp was previously in Taman Gelora KUantan. These assertions are clearly wrong because they are not supported by the facts. I would have thought that continuous feeding of such material whose frequency is exceeded only by their propagandistic value is normally associated with a ruling government. It now appears that the same bunny out of hat dirty trick is also being adopted with such panache by government forming aspirants. The facts of the matter are as follows:- Having an army camp is no done deal. In 1999 elections, the votes from Kem Tentera batu 10 Kuantan were split. In fact the candidate then lost votes from the air force base. He was saved by the higher votes from the army base. Therefore, postal votes are uncertain. No politician would ever want to absorb such 'grey' voting bloc into his parliamentary seat. In 2004 it was. Although the population in the camp was 10-12, thousand, actual voters numbered only 5000 or so. Unless of course, children, lamp posts, chattels and chickens are also included as legitimate voters. It is NOT TRUE the existence of army camps will automatically add to winnable voting bloc. Just recently in the 2008 elections, the BN candidate for DUN Beserah in which a navy camp is located, lost the votes there. He didn't win the postal votes from the Navy Camp at Tanjung Gelang Kuantan. It is therefore NOT TRUE the inclusion of military establishments in any one voting area amount to pre determined winnable voting bloc. In order to win votes from such areas, other efforts over and above than just the mere act of relocating them must be carried out. But we are not going to let the cat out of the bag. The ingredients of the formula are like that of Coke. No one knows what's inside the sugared beverage. Army camps may be necessary to add to winning numbers, but their mere physical presence is never sufficient. So the thinking mind will apply itself to find out what took place after 1999 to 2004 that converted the hitherto 'hostile' postal voters from Kem Batu 10 Kuantan into BN friendly voters in 2004. During that election, kem Batu Tentera Batu 10 added over 5000 votes to BN. Then the same mind will identify what wasn't done that led to the loss at Tanjung Gelang. The other additional votes came from voting areas like Jaya Gading, Sri Damai, some areas in Gudang Rasau,. These added another 5 to 6 thousand pro BN voters. Please note however during the 1999 general elections, voters from these areas rejected the BN candidate then. So once again, why would any survival sensitive politician would ever want to include uncertain voting blocs into his parliamentary seat like the PM did in 2004? In the 1999 elections, the BN candidate lost the kem tentera batu 10 votes and lost also the votes in Jaya Gading, Sri Damai and surrounding areas. For example BEFORE 1999, the only BN candidate who won the voting area of Jaya Gading is the present 'king' of kingless Melaka, when he was the candidate then. Jaya Gading for example is an unpredictable voting area. It could go either way. In the recent elections of 2008, the BN LOST this peti undi. Once again, to convert these areas into winnable areas for BN, required efforts and hard work beyond mere rearrangement of political boundaries. To give the impression that voters in military camps will automatically go with BN is clearly wrong as it assumes that voters in these wards are political dullards. They rejected the BN candidate in 1999. The navy camp in Tanjung Gelang rejected the BN candidate in 2008. As one commentator rightly noted, it's impossible and patently wrong to assert that within the military establishments, political consciousness is zero. Resettlement of refugees. For the less knowledgeable there are several areas which are settled by refugees. Since the 1970's areas in Tanjung Agas and Pulau Keladi (both in Pekan) were settled by Cambodian refugees. Now, allow me to tell readers that the areas assigned to them in most cases were mosquito infested swampy areas and land accepted by conventional wisdom then, as being infertile. What did these wretched refugees do? With little complaints, they settled thankfully and eked out whatever form of sustenance they could muster. The area in Pulau Keladi for example was one time fit only for wallowing buffalos. The Cambodian people built houses on high stilts and made a living off the river. They started rearing fish in cages. The younger ones took to become craftsmen, brick layers, carpenters. The kampung kemboja in Pulau Keladi has a population of about 600 families and probably those eligible for voting numbered only 200 at the most. Can any one accept that 200 votes from Cambodian refuges explain the over 22,000 vote majority of the PM in 2004? I have to tell readers this, because I was part of the Pekan formula after 1999 where we worked tirelessly to regain the trust of the people. Even the term 'we' may also be an overstatement as the impetus behind the Pekan formula is almost entirely attributable to the PM. The other point to note is the land allocated to these people did not amount to a deprivation of land to native born. The land was idle and regarded as useless before the wretched Cambodians came. The same reasoning is used to apply to Rohingyas in Sungai Miang. Before these people settled there, the land was also a huge inhabitable swathe of swamp. But these refugees went there and made the difference. The difference is accounted for by sheer back breaking work, diligence and perseverance. Again, those eligible for voting are not more than 200-300 people. If this point of giving land at the expense of locals is raised so as to infer a discriminatory measure by the PM and the land office in Pekan, it is highly misleading. It's the other way round. The people in Pekan who acknowledged the compassion inherent in the PM induced them to reciprocate by giving him a bigger mandate. Facts are facts. If you look at the data in the 2004 and 2008 elections, the majority obtained by the PM was higher that the majority of all the ADUNs in Pekan combined. Surely, we can't be serious in accepting this supercilious claim that the majority obtained by the PM in Pekan is the result of inclusion of military camps and resettlement of displaced people. There's more than these in the Pekan formula my friends. Its coca cola.
I found this short article in Cafe Hayek worth reading. In just a short passage, it explains the reason behind uneven income distribution. Of course it assumes that the political, social and even historical background under which economic actors behaved and acted are neutral. Assuming they are, then uneven income distribution can be explained thus:- Most wealth is created de novo in the process of applying ingenuity to comparatively worthless commodities, and the benefits flowing from consumers to providers in a free society bear no relation to any distributive or merit-based calculus. There can exist no principles of just conduct – which necessarily imply free choice – that would produce a pattern of wealth distribution which could also be called just. It is logically impossible to have a game in which both the actions of the players and the final score can be subject to rules of fairness. If it is unfair for one team to outscore another by more than a certain margin, the behavior of the players will have to be directed by the umpires. But if the players are to be free to act within rules of fair play, the outcome logically cannot be said to be unfair. Likewise, if citizens following all the rules of just conduct become wealthy, there is no basis on which to condemn the resulting distribution of wealth as "unjust." If no one actually commits an injustice, then no moral principle can reconcile justice to individuals with social justice after the fact. Only in centrally directed social systems, such as the military, can social justice even make sense, as there are no rules of just conduct in settings where individuals are instructed what to do. I hope this short passage can provoke thinking on this subject.
A question was posed to me a week ago, why do UMNO leaders resort to inflammatory rhetoric during elections? Why must a sense of raw and uncompromising Melayuness be invoked every time an election is held? The answer to me lies possibly in the fact that UMNO leadership is clueless as to what NOW,must be the clarion call to mobilise Malay support. Can it use economics to rally support? No because its economic policies by and large have benefited a small group- the super 30 which has since sold out to become anywhere between the super 19-20. Can it use the esoteric ideas of democracy, rule of law and so forth to win the lumpenproeltariat over? No because, what UMNO has done would contradict those ideals and because these things are of no practical value to the vast majority. Hence they must go deep to reach the reservoir of Malay support. The only areas they know, which could rekindle that spirit of oneness is to couch their calls in a fighting mode- suggesting that Malay interests are imperilled. This approach shouldn't be faulted because its aggressive tones are not directed at non Malays. I say this- UMNO does not have to answer to anyone what tools it uses and how it attempts to revive itself. Only UMNO can heal itself. They (the flagrant pronouncements) are directed actually to revive UMNO's internal values. They may offend the sensibilities of liberals but they are staple and comfort food for the majority of UMNO Malays and hopefully they also resonate well with the non UMNO Malays. The very raison detre of UMNO is fighting for Malay interests and that interests must be kept alive. These are the things the majority of Malays can identify with.
© Blogger templates Newspaper III by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
