Najib's people eCONomy Budget.

Najib’s people  eCONomy Budget.

Ok, we now know PM Najib wants a capital economy. This is not surprising. He is the chief spokesman for capital. What this simply means, is his government will carry out policies that support capital formation and accumulation by favoured parties, so that the combined income of these favoured parties when divided will elevate the per capita GDP.

Ananda Krishnan or Robert Kuok enters a room of 100 people- each one is a millionaire on paper because Ananda’s or Uncle Bobby’s income is divided among 101 people.

You see, the economic planners of our country have not weaned themselves away from being tied to the trickle down mentality; believing that if the few and selected are enriched, their generosity will trickle down in the form of more private investments, more job creation, more sharing of their prosperity.
These hopes have not materialised.

That has not been the outcome of trickle-down economics. The rich and select continue to amass wealth, creating disparities in income distribution, private investments as a result of favoured treatment have not materialised, and job creation as a result of the same favoured treatment on the rich has not happened. Social objectives expected by the government  to take place, if the rich and select were to be treated special, have also not happened.

The Malay supremacists have been complaining since I ever knew how to read, that almost all the shop houses, business premises, commercial complexes and malls in towns and cites are owned by non-Malays. Now, why have not the select group of super-rich Malays created as a result of government unnatural selection, done their part to make Malay representation in town and cites felt? Why haven’t these people built shops and malls, commercial centres and business premises?  Where is their nationalistic commitment?

None- they have become rich, damn the left behind. This is exactly the bourgeois thinking of our economic planners.and Najib is a bourgeois and an aristocrat disconnected from the ordinary folks. I want to say it as a matter of fact- what does Najib know about the sufferings and lost hopes of the rakyat? 

Since 1970s for example, the government has managed to create a coterie of super rich Malay people. Have these people invested in plants and machinery and even business premises in our cities? How many of these super rich Malays owned business premises in cities, shop houses and malls in towns and cities to showcase us that have played their part to show the presence of Bumiputera economic might? Very little is the answer.

The government will put up policies that support private investments- reduce taxes for the top or avoid implementing taxes that may reduce incentives to work harder on the part of the favoured few, make it easy for favoured companies to list their companies and get public money) bonds, sukuk or whatever financial instruments which are basically public IOUs) ensure corporate profits are maximised by way of favourable tax regimes and protection from pesky dissidents, falsifying accounts to get good sovereign and credit ratings. Hotels in Langkawi charge guest rates converted from US rates but pay workers in Malaysian Ringgit which is in the dumps.

The bastion of the capital economy is of course the Bursa Saham- the temple for professional gamblers where people speculate and made killings. That’s Najib’s capital economy for you. Even Friedman can’t coin up that term.  

But we know it as the economy of the top 20%, by the top 20% and for the top 20%.
Najib is saying- rich boys and girls- I shall take care of you. 
 

For the rest, it is people’s eCONomy. 

Najib’s pride and joy is the NTP- National Transformation Plan which he thought would distinguish him from Pak lah. Today he is regarded as worse than Pak Lah. In GE14 I said, he failed miserably. The opposition got more seats. The people of Selangor should kick him out because he failed to secure Selangor. He was the UMNO Liaison chief. His biggest liability is the irascible MP from Tanjung Karang. We pray Najib keeps him around. Only the Man who can walk on water dares to say Najib has failed. And Sakmongkol who has been saying that all this while.

The NTP has 9 components- all of which are acronym-ed. The people from the Kampong know nothing of these and that the existence of these proved that Najib lied right from the start. For under him, the era of the Government knows better is entrenched. Najib has no time for the Kampong people who are mere digits easily silenced by bread crumbs known as BR1M. Those are all taxpayer’s money not Najib’s money.

The 2015 budget is the same old wine in a new bottle. It repeats the same things over and over again different only in forms. The BN budget has said the same things like:

a)   Creating economic growth with income distribution;

b)   Control budget deficits  

c)   Develop knowledge and a high technology economy;

d)   acknowledge the importance of  the services industries,

e)   Strategize and pick “winners”;

f)    Enhance human capital development;

g)   Empower women ;( Najib loves his woman/women)

h)   Build infrastructure like roads, rails, bridges, and telecommunications, water and electricity supplies;

i)     Restructure society and help Malays and other Bumiputera;

j)     Go green to preserve and protect the environment;

k)   Buys more military assets with commissions of course, to provide security and safety for the people;

l)     And now, this new one- develop Malaysia as a sporting nation.

The economic planners thinks they can beat the market by creating niche enterprises believing them to be “winners” – lychee and longan cultivation, herbal medicine- we have so many herbal valleys and designated areas, we have a multi-million Ringgit herbal processing plant in Lengong Perak which made a particular person rich by a commission o RM15 million, we have entertainment and movie-making enterprises,  halal food and industry hubs, wafer manufacturing, tuna fishing and cattle breeding (NFC) – and now, hear this a sturgeon fish rearing program deep in the jungles of Jerantut Pahang. Just the other day, I asked my MP colleague from Jerantut, to bring us some smoked sturgeon or the Jerantut caviar.

The cheaper Ringgit has not helped our workers. They are paid in the cheaper Ringgit while their employers earn income equivalent to US Dollars. Hotels in Langkawi charge their patrons in rates similar to hotels in Phuket- in US Dollar equivalent. They pay their workers in Ringgit. Why hasn’t the ordinary worker enjoyed the effects of the devalued Ringgit which ought to spur exports, sales of Malaysian goods and services?  The bounties from a devalued Ringgit are enjoyed by the select few who continue to prosper on the back of the suffering of ordinary folks.

This is how Najib’s people eCONomy works.