To Atobe,
I am actually not meaning for this discussion to turn into a
Malaysia vs Singapore thing. I was just responding to the thread to
answer why Malaysians and their government feel that they are
against the war. But sadly, it has taken a different turn. But,
never mind, its my opinion anyway that will be forthcoming, not
whatever they want to do up north.
It is doubtful if the USA will ever carry the stick over
the Saudis, there is too much antagonism towards the USA to risk
having a major Arab ally being alienated. The US Citizens will be
at liberty to pursue private litigation efforts against the Saudis
or the Bin Laden Family, but it will be doubtful if the US
Government will pursue a line of toughness with the
Saudis.
While the Saudis prove useful to the Americans, of course they will
hold back the stick (but it is like the sword of Damocles .. its
still there over the heads of the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians and
Turkish) The fact that they are unhappy with the current level of
support shown by the above said governments (as reported in The
Economis magazine) shows that they will use the stick and carrot
routine to get what they (the Americans) want
They try to upstage even the ASEAN Secretariat, by
attempting to form an independent Secretariat that reflects the
agreed ASEAN+3 concept(?). It was only a result of the strong
objections from Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand that this
Malaysian idea was dropped.
And what about EAEC? They tried to get consensus from all the
members but it was continually shot down by us?
PM Mahatirs attempts to take the lead role is well known
for his efforts to lead the Muslim World to withstand competition
and degrading attitude from the First World.
The OPEC members did that way back in the 1970s .. they brought the
world to its knees. So Dr M is merely taking a page in the book
that shows that to deal with capatilistic societies, you have to
band together and force the first world to listen to you.
Otherwise, the division will always be there to kill you.
His effort (and that of his FM Syed Hamid Albar) to out-do
the Arabs is hardly disguised by forming a separate conference of
Islamic Countries - to condemn USA in their efforts to attack
Saddam or Iraq within the NAM meeting in Kuala Lumpur in late
2002. The protests from the Arabs put a stop to this matter, as the
O.I.C Meeting was to be held ten days later in Doha, after NAM in
Kuala Lumpur.
Of course, the current head of OIC, Qatar, put a stop to it as it
stands to gain the most from the war.
In any case, why bother with sour grapes if Malaysia
decides NOT to measure their system against the Best of the Best;
but is quite satisfied with the levels which they envision for
themselves.
Well they should be satisfied. Of course the should not rest on
their laurels, but it is indeed satisfying what Dr M has done in
his tenure compared to what the previous 3 PMs did.
After inheriting the legacy from Nelson Mandela, Thabo had
shown his idiocy by declaring that no Government Funds will be
given to any hospitals who dare contradict his finding that Aids or
HIV is not caused by Virus.
If you will just ignore the issue with AIDS, you will see that he
is as capable as any other foreign leader. Just as I take the same
stance with GCT. If you just look at the idiotic stance that the
PAP has with FW/FT and focus on that, you will not see how
Singapore has progressed. Each man has his blind spots and
failures.
With violent crimes rising to the point of lawlessness,
affecting almost every level of society, the place is no longer
safe even in the up market neighborhood. Car jacking, rape, murder,
daylight shooting, assaults, and what other violent crimes you can
think of, all these are happening in South Africa under
Thabo.
Violent crime is bad in SA even BEFORE Mandela's time. His wife
(winnie) was even convicted of murdering opposition supporters.
There was hate crime, death squads, ghettos and whatnot. The only
way you solve this problmes is to improve the economic situation
and halt inflation. Hence I am sure that Thabo is doing a better
job. Its like saying that because there are still drug pushers in
Singapore, LKY and GCT did not do a good job (there are still drug
pushers in Singapore .. remember about that abandoned boy in JB?
His parents are convicted drug pushers)
In your opinion, could he be doing better than GCT
?
Yes, of course its my opinion, you have to ask the SA's to see if
they agree.
While the Malays or Bumiputras had access to soft loans,
based on Islamic Banking system, the other ethnic groups have only
access to commercial loans based on commercial terms and
conditions.
Common misconceptions. Soft loans / Handouts are available to
people of all races. Its just that it is more discrete. I can share
2 cases that is well known.
a) Samy Veloo of MIC has borrowed millions from Malaysian banks.
When asked to pay (after 4-5 years), he will just pay the
principal, not the interest. Indeed, ALL political parties have the
same benefits, hence their banking sector was in such a mess a few
years ago. So if they want a bank loan, they just join a political
party, drop some names and the money will be theirs. Totally
unsecured.
b) The reason why there is so much turmoil in MCA right now is
because Dr Ling has overstayed his tenure. He was supposed to
retire in 1994. He now says he is going by 2005. Why the delay? He
needs a successor in place to safeguard his family. His son, has a
finger in every pie and has been burnt heavily. If not for the
father's position, the son will be killed (whereabouts currently
unknown)
So its the whole political regime (Malay, Indian, Chinese) who are
corrupted over there.
Of course anything can happen for the future, but given the
fine balance of racial harmony that exist in Malaysia, would a
savvy politicians dare put his career at risks ?
Of course. If the politician can't do one thing and say another,
they won't be politicians.
Dont count on the stock market recovery after Iraq is
taken over.
I was talking about how USA will be rewarding its allies (and the
republican party supporters) with plum jobs and pork barrel
projects. Its true for all political parties in the world.
How else do poor "kampung boys", with no historical
connections to wealth and fame, can succeed in one generation to
have their sons owning and operating corporations that are involved
in mega-million dollar enterprises ?
Lee Kah Shing built his own empire through ingenuity, foresight,
and keen business sense.
How could the Malaysian Politicians - who are mainly kampung boys -
manage to find their million dollar funds to form mega-corporations
for their children to operate, and all in one generation, with the
dads entering politics mostly coming from poor family background.
"
Ah .. but the Malaysian politicians whose sons are in business are
the minority. Most of the cronies companies are actually run by the
sons of the BUSINESSMEN. Examples are like Sime Darby, Maybank,
Maxis, Genting, YTL .. all do not have sons of politicians at the
helm. Their father may have built the empire that the son is
running now, but its definately scions of the family, not political
apointees.
[b]In any case, SingTel is NOT a Private Company owned by Private
Capital. The effort in privatization by the SGP Government is only
skin deep; as it try to disguise the GLCs into private companies
by selling out to "approved" private public personalities that
seems to be acting as "proxies in trust for the
Government"(?).
So are you saying that it is misleading the public that those are
private companies (that can be invested on) while its actually just
a government body? (that the final authority is the
government)
Have you forgotten the Singapore Shares ? At least
Singaporeans get back something from the Government, despite the
losses. What has the Malaysian politicians done with their National
Reserves ?
The NSS is a bribe to quiet the people during the last election.
(Thats my opinion) The Malaysian people got 1 tax free year. Same
thing ..
They could not even pay for their military hardware
purchase in Cash, and have to barter with their Palm
Oil,
The fact that some country is willing to accept the palm oll at an
agreed upon value will bring less burden to the Malaysians, unlike
us who buy state of the art toys with precious foreign
reserves.
nor do they allocate any funds to handle their problems
with the Drug Addicts,
ANY FUNDS? Are you for sure that the Malaysians give RM0.00 to
handle their crime and drug problems? Its like saying Singapore
allocates ZERO for sports development for locals.
and other social welfare, educational, and infrastructural
problems; and yet they make a big thing about investing overseas -
which serves as "conduits for leakages".
Malaysia invests more in sports development for their locals than
Singapore does. Have you forgotten how our girls lost the netball
final to Malaysia in the last sea games despite being the
favourite? And the recent tiger cup where we lost to their under23
team? This is development of their youth.
One would expect that at least they put their house in
order, before attempting to play the Guardian Angel to help the
Third World Countries.
Funny, I was about to say the same thing about Singapore, how we
should first learn about true competition in the domestic Singapore
market before teaching the likes of China, ASEAN about it.
Building homes in North Korea would that be a North
Korean State Funded Project, or will it be another Malaysian
Politician's daylight robbery on their National Reserves ? Altruism
or foolishness ?
Your guess is as good as mine. Guess we have to find out by reading
the FEER or Economist more.
It should read more accurately if you had written that the
Malaysian Government is doing what it thinks is best to benefit its
cronies, as the Citizens are hardly aware that such investments
exist.
I agree with you
Whatever new opportunities from new emerging markets will
benefit the crony operated corporations, and seldom the Malaysian
citizens.
Same for Singapore. Benefits to the GLCs will not directly
translate to better conditions for most of us ordinary
Singaporeans. Buying Optus did not translate to lower phone calls
to Australia.
Do not forget that Czech, Poland, Hungary had only until
recently emerged from a Stalinist economy, with the collapse of the
Soviet Union through Perestoika and Glasnost. Malaysias exposure
to the worlds free and open economy stretches back since it
independence from Colonial Rule - a period of more then Forty
Years. [b]
Malaysia was a primary commodity producer even in the 70s. They
have only started manufacturing in late 70s and early 80s. If you
look at the development, they have definately achived more out of
the farmers, rubber tappers and tin miners than those communists
who work in factores. The factories were all in Singapore. The port
was in Singapore. The banks were in Singapore.
ALso, how come Singapore loses out to other NICs like South Korea?
They suffered a war back in 1955, a military dictatorship and a
horrible economic crisis in 1998. Yet they are stronger than us
now. They have better world class industries than Singapore. (And
their men have NS)
[b]Surely Malaysia could have done better if measured against those
ex-Soviet style economy - instead of only a marginal
difference.
I like the could have done better part. In the
last few issues of Asiaweek, they showed the ratio of head of
government vs ordinary clerk.
Malaysia 26.0
Singapore 86.2
Japan 15.0
Australia 7.4
Thailand 18.2
Indonesia 103
HK 27.7
So since the ratio of what leaders are paid in comparison to what
ordinary workers get is so high in Singapore, we should be able to
get leadership here that can perform 3 times (300%) better than
Malaysia. Sadly, we are only about 1 or 2 % better. Indeed, GCT is
paid 8 times Dr M .. and is our performance that much better?
Like that, I will agree that Malaysia COULD HAVE done better. But
you will have to agree that our politicians COULD HAVE also DONE
better or better yet, be PAID MUCH LESS.
Singapores economy has reached a level of maturity much
like that seen in Japan, and other First World
economy.
Then we must measure Singapore with NICs, Japan with G8 and
Malaysia with the developing world's. No point then comparing
Singapore and Switzerland, Malaysia with Uganda and Japan with
North Korea. Apples to Apples. And by apples to apples, Malaysia is
doing great for a developing country.
