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Malaysian tragedy

Written by Dr Lim Teck Ghee
Friday, 07 May 2010 17:49



An editorial to be written in year 2013

Three years since implementing the New Economic Model, the party’s over in Malaysia. To be sure, it had been quite a party. With a long-entrenched propensity to base its domestic economy on consumption and spending, the low interest rates of the Asean region helped galvanise borrowings and mortgages to the point of Malaysia’s national debt exceeding gross domestic product by 115 percent. The more than US$100 billion (RM350 billion) bailout package agreed to by Malaysia’s Asean partners and the International Monetary Fund, with primus inter pares Indonesia insisting on stringent conditions, will temporarily ease but not permanently solve the strapped nation’s financial problems.

And with US$8.5 billion in bond payments due in just two weeks’ time, Prime Minister Najib Razak’s proposed domestic austerity policies seem tragically pathetic. Angry public protests have greeted such measures as raising the retirement age from 55 to 65 and hiking value-added tax from 21 per cent to 25 per cent to help reduce a budget deficit that last year stood at nearly four times the limit permitted in the Asean region. The Malaysian-in-the-street seems to put the blame squarely on the country's administration, reputedly so loose on fiscal integrity as to have made corruption a normal, ordinary, commonplace fact of life in Malaysia. One Transparency International study suggests that 13.5 percent of Malaysian households paid bribes exceeding US$1,000 last year, and tax evasion is so rampant that improbably fewer than 150,000 of 26 million citizens pay more than a total of RM1 million in taxes annually.

This entrenched cynicism of Malaysia’s citizenry feeds rapaciously on the perceived corruption of their state administrative machinery, leading to even greater anger over the Najib’s administration's exhortations to the common folk to tighten their belts and suck up these new deprivations and hardships to save their mismanaged national economy. The Asean bailout, they sneer, will only throw good money after bad, and disappear down the same black hole of graft and corner-cutting avarice that has sucked up Malaysia’s prosperity and promise.

It remains to be seen what miracles of fiscal and political management might help Malaysia survive the decade the IMF expects it will take to recover from this collapse. With other Asean countries also struggling on the slippery lower rungs of the Asean region, this will undoubtedly prove to be an invaluable experience for Asean’s brave but obviously still tentative experiment in financial union.

CPI note

The above half-parody, half-prognosis by Dr Lim Teck Ghee reproduces almost in toto the New Straits Times’ May 3 editorial headlined ‘Greek tragedy’ (which we’ve also taken the liberty to republish below).

The leader writer of the NST piece would have done better to deploy his analytical and obvious literary skills on developments in Malaysia.

Since he has not done so, or has possibly been ‘discouraged’ from casting an eye on home ground, we are replicating his concerns – so well put in eloquent English – on the unfolding Grecian tragedy and applying them to our fair country.

What we’d done above is merely to substitute ‘Malaysia’ for ‘Greece’, ‘Asean’ for ‘European Union’, ‘ringgit for ‘drachma’, and so on.

We trust the NST management will not mind our borrowing the paper’s editorial framework, which is just us paying humble homage to their high quality of expression in the English language. As they say – Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

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Greek tragedy

New Straits Times editorial of 3 May 2010

NINETEEN years since joining the European Union and nine years since dropping the drachma for the euro, the party's over in Greece. To be sure, it had been quite a party. With a long-entrenched propensity to base its domestic economy on consumption and spending, the low interest rates of the eurozone helped galvanise borrowings and mortgages to the point of Greece's national debt exceeding gross domestic product by 115 per cent. The more than E100 billion (RM500 billion) bailout package agreed to by Greece's European partners and the International Monetary Fund, with primus inter pares Germany insisting on stringent conditions, will temporarily ease but not permanently solve the strapped Aegean nation's financial problems.


And with E8.5 billion in bond payments due in just two weeks' time, Prime Minister George Papandreou's proposed domestic austerity policies seem tragically pathetic. Angry public protests have greeted such measures as raising the retirement age from 53 to 65 and hiking value-added tax from 21 per cent to 25 per cent to help reduce a budget deficit that last year stood at nearly four times the limit permitted in the eurozone. The Greek in the street seems to put the blame squarely on the country's administration, reputedly so loose on fiscal integrity as to have made corruption a normal, ordinary, commonplace fact of life in Greece. One Transparency International study suggests that 13.5 per cent of Greek households paid bribes exceeding E1,000 last year, and tax evasion is so rampant that improbably fewer than 15,000 of 11 million citizens pay more than E100,000 in taxes annually.

This entrenched cynicism of Greece's citizenry feeds rapaciously on the perceived corruption of their state administrative machinery, leading to even greater anger over the Papandreou administration's exhortations to the common folk to tighten their belts and suck up these new deprivations and hardships to save their mismanaged national economy. The European bailout, they sneer, will only throw good money after bad, and disappear down the same black hole of graft and corner-cutting avarice that has sucked up Greece's prosperity and promise.

It remains to be seen what miracles of fiscal and political management might help Greece survive the decade the IMF expects it will take to recover from this collapse. With Portugal, Spain, Iceland and Ireland also struggling on the slippery lower rungs of the eurozone, this will undoubtedly prove to be an invaluable experience for Europe's brave but obviously still tentative experiment in financial union.

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The small tragedy, MORE OF AN IRONY2! in YL's eye as a newwshound from Jurassick Park...

Challenge -- GUESS which paper?:( The following headline appears in a mainstream newspaper Yesterday,when many Malaysians' troubles were here/hear to stay!:)

To be continued as Desi hunts down the head ... in his RM1.50 kopi:)...


Saturday May 8, 2010
Arjunaidi: New police tagline is to work hand-in-glove with the public

In such Malaysian times, maybe the sub-editor or Editor had a sense of irony using that "wrong" idiotic -- oops, idiomatic -- expression because it's commonly perceived these +++"mata-mata" or gentlemen of the law indeed can settle any problem with some grease on their hands. So wearing a glove literally may jest work to dispell the notion that any wrongdoing or offence can be ***"Kau-DimMed"!

NB: Just to educate the mat salleh or mad sally tourist visiting Malaysia, +++"mata-mata" is common Malay/Bahasa Malaysia term for the cops or constables who walk the street...

***Kau-DimMed" derives from the Kantonis dialect which means you pay a bribe with money or any favour in kind to solve a "local" problem -- yeah,working hand-in-glove lah, as the Mat Salleh would proclaim back home in that British Empire who bequeathed me a language I'm eternally gratefool for; sometimesmy SPERRING is influenced by the way local Cinoseries pronounce Engrish, exchanging their "l"s and "r"s quite beautifoolly, and Desi writHes in DDC todie! KnottyaSsusual!:)