Najib practices a two faced NEP cum NEM economic policy

By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP Life advisor
23 Feb 2013

Events have shown that the NEP is still enforced in the economic development of the economy – two faced NEP and NEM economic policy.

Soon after being Prime Minister, Najib launched his New Economic Model to stimulate development with the aim of achieving a high economy like that of the Asian Tigers of Singapore, S Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan

To do this he had to get rid of the economic handicaps wrought by the New Economic Policy. It is on record that Najib announced on May 2nd 2009 that he would replace NEP with his New Economic Model (NEM).

It is now 2013, and the signs of a high income economy are not encouraging. For Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) of 2012 Malaysia scored 9 billion US dollars compared to Indonesia’s US$19 billion and Singapore US$130 billion. (World Bank figures)

Per capita income for Malaysia in 2012 was US$9500 thousand, compared to Hong Kong US$30 thousand, Singapore US$50 thousand and South Korea US$25 thousand. Can Malaysia reach a high income status of US$20 thousand by 2020.

Much has been publicised about huge foreign investments, but the Per capita income and FDIs are the tests to show the true state of the economy.

So what has pulled down the NEM. It is the NEP which caused the economy to be sluggish. It was presented by Najib’s father Tun Razak in 1971. The NEP is very much in force, not officially but its principles are still enforced in the ministries and state governments. Reliable sources say that the administration czars demand 40% control of all new investments.

Two days ago, REHDA the highest body of private housing developers complain that the NEP conditions were hampering housing development. The imposition of 30% allocation for bumiputeras was causing huge losses to the industry.

But government and UMNO cronies enjoy exemption of the 30% clause, and they make the money.

Examples: Felda Sendayan project , Ainsdale project in Labu and the latest Railyard Project in Seremban. All three projects are exempted from the NEP as they not required to build low cost houses.

However, private developers throughout the country, including Negri Sembilan, have to follow the requirement of building 30% low cost housing.

Najib is practising a two faced economic policy – a combination of NEP and NEM. It is no wonder that a high income economy will be impossible to achieve.

Malaysian government’s debt to approach RM1 trillion by 2020

by Pak Sako | Monday, 25 February 2013 14:53
CPI

CPI Introduction

This is the second part of a three-part CPI series on Malaysian debt. The first part, entitled, ‘Investigate Malaysia’s debts now’ , surveyed the overall debt situation.

This part examines the trend in government debt. The upcoming part will concern Malaysia’s total debt.

Statistics reveal that in the last 15 years, the Malaysian government’s debt increased at an unprecedented rate.

The graph below shows the statistics for the government’s combined domestic and foreign debts from 1991 till the present. Forecasts are provided up to the year 2017.


Read More: http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/02/26/malaysian-governments-debt-to-approach-rm1-trillion-by-2020/

Sultanate of Sulu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

         For the province, see Sulu.

 

The Sultanate of Sulu Dar al-Islam^{[note 1]} (Jawi: سلطنة سولو دار الإسلام) was an Islamic Tausūg^{[note 2]}state that ruled over many of the islands of the Sulu Sea, in the southern Philippines and several places in northern Borneo. The sultanate was founded in 1457^{[note 3]} by a Johore-born Arab explorer and religious scholar Sayyid Abu Bakr Abirin^{[note 4]} after he settled in Banua Buansa Ummah (ummah is an Arabic term for "community"), Sulu. After the marriage of Abu Bakr and local dayang-dayang (princess) Paramisuli, he founded the sultanate and assumed the title Paduka Mahasari Maulana al Sultan Sharif ul-Hāshim. It is believed that the people at that time considered Sharif ul-Hāshim to be a direct descendant of Islamic prophet Muhammad as this is what "Sharif" denotes .^[4]
Currently the issue of who would be the legitimate Sultan of Sulu is disputed by several branches of Royal Families, although the line of succession fell on the Kiram branch of the royal family from the 1863 Jamalul(Agdam)Alam-Kiram. Since 2001, the current recognized pretenders to the throne are Jamalul Kiram III and Ismael Kiram II. Abraham Julpa Idjirani is the current secretary general and spokesperson of the Sultanate. ^[5] Another pretender to the throne is Muedzul Lail Tan Kiram of Sulu, which hails from a different royal lineage.
 

Read more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Sulu#mw-head

How High Cholesterol Leads to Atherosclerosis

WebMD Medical Reference

Abnormal cholesterol levels are associated with clogged arteries as a result of a process called atherosclerosis. having a better cholesterol profile lowers the risk of diseases caused by atherosclerosis, like heart attacks and strokes.
So what makes cholesterol so bad for your arteries? And isn't there a "good" cholesterol? How does treating high cholesterol help?

Read more:
http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/how-high-cholesterol-leads-atherosclerosis#mainContentContainer_area

Suaris Interview: The Future of Malays Part 3:

by Bakri Musa

[The original, in Malay, appeared in suaris.wordpress.com on January 31, 2013]

Suaris: You advocate strategies that are generally deemed to be evolutionary in nature to change the collective Malay mindset. Should Malays be “shocked” with revolutionary changes as we saw with the Japanese and South Koreans that led to their quantum leap in achievement?

MBM: When Mohamed Bouazizi burned himself to death in Tunisia on January 4, 2011, 
it was not his intention to start a riot or revolution. He had simply given up hope; he just wanted to
end his misery. His personal action however, triggered a revolution not only in Tunisia but also the
entire Arab world.

Gamel Nasser was frothing at the mouth in wanting to revolutionize the Arabs; he was lucky that his Egypt was not totally whipped by Israel in the 1967 War. Senu Abdul Rahman and other Malay leaders like Abdullah Badawi, together with our intellectuals, were also intoxicated with their Revolusi Mental back then. Today, you could not even find the book of the same title that they wrote, and we Malays have remained the same.

Whether a change is evolutionary or revolutionary depends not on action or intention but on results and consequences. Bouazizi merely intended to end his suffering but his action reverberated throughout the Arab world, taking down hitherto strong men like Ghaddafi and Mubarak.

Evolutionary changes are small and incremental; revolutionary ones dramatic and disruptive. It is well to remember that we could bring down a mountain by aiming a jet of water at its base (as with the old hydraulic tin mining) as by planting explosives.

James C Scott, the Yale political scientist who studied the peasants in Kedah’s rice bowl, in his book, Weapons of the Weak, uses a different metaphor. When the ship of state runs aground on a coral reef, attention is directed to the shipwreck (revolutionary) but not the aggregations of petty acts that made those treacherous reefs possible (evolutionary).

Your reading of the Japanese and South Koreans is not quite accurate. True, viewed today the changes in their societies are truly revolutionary. However, the steps their leaders took much earlier were all incremental and evolutionary in nature, stretching over decades.

Japan after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 sent thousands of its teachers and senior civil servants to the West to study its systems of education and administration. They were gone not just for a few weeks of “study tour” but for years. Even today, Japan takes in thousands of English teachers from America. Those were all evolutionary not revolutionary initiatives. We take in a handful of teachers from America under the Fulbright Program and we make a big deal of it and deem it revolutionary.

Likewise South Korea; during the 1970s it sent thousands of its students to the West for graduate work in the sciences and engineering. When President Pak visited America he met with many of them including those who opposed him, to cajole them to return. When they did, they were supported with loans to start their enterprises. Compare that to Prime Minister Najib; the only student he met was a Petronas University flunkie, one Saiful who was purportedly looking for a scholarship.

I dealt more deeply with Japan and South Korea, as well as Ireland and Argentina, in my earlier book, Malaysia In The Era of Globalization (2002).

To continue our “Look East,” a closer example both in space and time is China. Mao Zedong was consumed with one revolution after another to, borrowing Najib’s favorite word, “transform” his country. The result? Hundreds of millions of his countrymen suffered or were killed. Hundreds of millions! That would be the whole of Indonesia!

Then came Deng; his philosophy was simple. He could not care less what the color of the cat as long as it catches the mouse. With that he changed the nature and character of China and its society. Today China has eclipsed economically Japan and Germany, and threatening to do likewise to America.

Our neighbor Indonesia had one revolution after another under Sukarno, but its people remained destitute. Mahathir too aspired to revolutionize our culture and people. In the end it was he who cried.

Returning to my earlier garden metaphor, revolution is where you indiscriminately spray Roundup. Yes, that would kill the lalang but also wipe out the useful plants. With evolutionary strategies, you would meticulously pour the concentrated pesticide right at the root of the offending weed while sparing the useful plants. They can now grow unimpeded, the lalang now completely eradicated.

Liberate the Malay mind, one at a time, in a process that is evolutionary and incremental but cumulative and sure. The results would astound us and be deemed revolutionary. When a mind is liberated, it can no longer be imprisoned. We would then be no longer, to use the terminology of the Algerian philosopher Malek Bennabi, “colonizable.”

Even more beautiful, a liberated mind will see clearly that the green, lush grass in our garden is after all the tenacious and highly destructive weed lalang and not, as our leaders are trying to convince us all along, alfalfa.

To continue. Suaris Interview # 4: It is said that Malays are at a crossroad. This is particularly so with the upcoming General Election 13 where the choice is between feudalism and liberalism. To what extent do you agree with that viewpoint?