By Dr Chen Man Hin, DAP Life Advisor
PM NAJIB MUST GIVE UP PLAYING OLD POLITICS OR HIS 1 MALAYSIA VISION WILL VANISH
One must admit that PM Najib has been trying very hard to push his vision of 1 Malaysia to gain the support of the people, but the people are not seen to resonate to his call. These are the reasons.
HE LACKS SINCERITY. He claims that he wants unity so that we are one people. The next moment he proceeded to Perak and engineered a coup de’tat to take over the PR state government. He has achieved it with the support and co-operation from royalty, the judiciary, the attorney chambers, the police, the election commission and the bureaucracy. Instead of unity, he has created disunity among the people.
HIS 1 MALAYSIA WAS INTENDED TO UNITE THE WHOLE NATION TO CONSIST OF ONE PEOLE, ONE NATION. However at the same time, he continues to support Umno’s policy of ketuanan Melayu. How is it possible for the people to be one people, when at the same time he allows a political party of which he is president to struggle for a divisive ketuanan Melayu policy?
HE LACKS COMPETENCY. PM Najib as finance minister launched two financial stimulus packages totalling some 70billion ringgits to fight off the painful effects of a global credit crunch. When he was appointed PM there was no recession yet, but now the national economy is in recession. all his reassuring words of ‘no recession, only a mild economic downturn’ has fallen flat. for this year, the GDP is estimated to be negative by 5% (7% by independent analysts).
The government has admitted that only 20% of the stimulus packages were used to revive the economy. The money was allocated by parliament, but incompetency and inertia of government bureaucracy sabotaged the stimulus plan.
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY. Any government can have the best of strategies and plans, but if there is lack of transparency the projects will not take off but will flop badly. Corruption is still a national scourge and has cost the nation billions of ringgits. The most recent scandal of Port Klang Free Trade Zone is a case in point.
The biggest scandals involve the award of tenders of government contracts. Billions of ringgits are lost through kickbacks. Tenders are awarded to political cronies and not on basis of merit and experience. These corrupt practices result in the building of faulty bridges, schools sturctures, stadiums and government buildings of parliament and Putrajaya.
THE NEP BAGGAGE. In these hard times of recession, foreign direct investments provide a life to the economy. Unfortunately the FDIs have fallen precipitously last year and projected to dive down by 60% for this years. PM Najib has worked hard to get China and Singapore to invest in Malaysia. We must advise and warn the PM that unless he revokes the investment unfriendly NEP all his efforts will come nought. All the goodwill he has engendered will vanish, when the foreign investor see that Malaysia’s terms are unattractive.
DAP advice to PM Najib. We think your 1Malaysia is a good objective, but it cannot be achieved if you still embrace old politics of race, corruption and racial politics.
In a globalised world the road to success for Malaysia is to preach and practise the new politics of competency, accountability and transparency. Racial politics are out meritocracy is in.
FINANCIAL MARKET STRESS
I recommended the two articles inserted at the page bottom to you just for the purpose of calling for your attention to the economic problems that occur quite regularly, not only to Americans but also to Malaysians as well. If you have no time to read all of them, then I hope you read the following excerpt:
“Secretary Paulson has been working on this package for about a year, so it’s not like pulling a rabbit out a hat,” Perino added. “It’s very constructive, deliberate thinking amongst the best minds in economics.”
For his part, Paulson rejected Democratic charges that it was lax regulation of mortgage brokers and the financial industry that had led to the current problems.
“I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current market turmoil,” he said. “I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer or even that more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market stress that seem to occur every five to 10 years.”
The last sentence of Perino has called upon my special attention: “I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer or even that more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market stress that seem to occur every five to 10 years.”
In Malaysia, I remembered that we had a bad year of financial market stress in 1988. When I came back to Malaysia from the United States in early 1989, a lot of local university graduates from the Malaysian Government operated universities were drawing a financial aid of RM600 per month from the government’s special grant programme for helping the unemployed graduates. In early 1989, I managed to get my first job as an analyst programmer for a salary of RM900 per month. I later quit the job and went to Singapore to find a higher-pay job of Systems Analyst. Malaysia had its commendable economic recovery only after 1990, even though Singapore had already had a tourism boom and electronics boom in 1989.
In 1998, we had the worst financial market stress in history since Ringgit and the currencies of neighbouring countries like Thailand and Indonesia had been severely attacked by the currency speculators. Ringgit dropped from RM2.30 against USD1 in June 1997 to RM4.20 against USD1 in August 1998.
This year 2008 also seems to be a year of financial market stress for most Malaysians. The commercial banks have worked diligently to do a margin call or loan callback on the borrowers and have efficiently taken legal actions against the delinquent loan borrowers within a selective prosecution court system that still lives in the darkness of the shadow of Ex-Premier Dr Mahathir. Our political turmoil seems to have been worsening off even after the General Elections had been satisfactorily held on 8/3/2008. The outcome of the general elections 2008 had created a lot of political predicaments for the leadership of the ruling coalition since the top leaders had been asked several times by the insider challengers to quit the party post as an indication of being a responsible person who bears the full responsibility for the poorer election performance in order to hold themselves answerable to the party members. MCA top leaders will be facing the music in the party election that is expected to begin in May 2008 and will last until October 2008. UMNO top leaders will also be challenged in the final party election that is supposed to be held in November 2008. It is quite likely that Pak Lah will be challenged by Tengku Razaleigh (Ku Li) this time for the post of party president and will quite likely be defeated by Ku Li if Pak Lah cannot manage to rebuild his fading political influence by middle of this year. The political instability in 2008 will most likely cause some negative impact on the economic growth since there will be an obvious slow down of foreign direct investment in the midst of political uncertainties. Meanwhile, increasing the internal demand by encouraging domestic spending that is supposed to be an intrument to be used to accelerate the economic growth rate will most likely not be functioning well this time since the government spending will be impeded by the quiet but ambitious top party post challengers who hold important ministerial position in the Central Government or the State Government.
Some fatalists like to predict that Malaysia will be having an economic crisis every 10 years and it is said that this destiny has been pre-destined by a curse in relation to the time and date of the Independence. Although I do not believe in fatalism, I do believe that there is certain structural flaw that has been built into our economic or financial systems. This suspected unnoticed structural flaw may have caused a cyclical downturn of economic growth in our country due to the economic excesses reaching its peak after every 10 years. However, no one in so far is able to accurately pinpoint which suspected unnoticed structural flaw has actually hidden in our economic or financial systems and how it can be triggered off in order to jeopardise our economic growth every 10 years. Therefore, a lot of Malaysians still have to suffer from the cyclical repetitions of financial market stress as pre-destined by fatalism.
Economic fatalism is really a big puzzle for most Malaysians. Who will be the white knight to help solve the puzzle for us, do you know?
Desmond Wong
31.03.2008
Paulson proposes financial overhaul
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer 31.03.2008
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration Monday proposed the most far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.
The plan would change how the government regulates thousands of businesses from the nation’s biggest banks and investment houses down to the local insurance agent and mortgage broker.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveiled the 218-page plan in a speech in Treasury’s ornate Cash Room. He declared that a strong financial system was important not just for Wall Street but also for working Americans.
The administration’s plan was already drawing criticism from Democrats that it does not go far enough to deal with abuses in mortgage lending and securities trading that were exposed by the current credit crisis.
The plan, which would require congressional approval for its biggest changes, seeks to trim a hodge-podge collection of overlapping jurisdictions that date back to the Civil War.
It would give the Federal Reserve more power to protect the stability of the entire financial system while merging day-to-day bank supervision into one agency, down from five at present.
It also would create one super agency in charge of business conduct and consumer protection, performing many of the functions of the current Securities and Exchange Commission.
It would propose eliminating the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, merging their functions into other agencies.
It would ask Congress to establish a federal Mortgage Origination Commission to set recommended minimum licensing standards for mortgage brokers, many of whom now operate outside of federal regulation, and it would also take a first step toward federal regulation of the insurance industry by asking Congress to establish an Office of Insurance Oversight inside the Treasury Department.
Paulson acknowledged in his remarks that most of the changes will not occur until after a lengthy debate in Congress, leaving it to the next administration to deal with the biggest changes proposed by the report. He also said the Bush administration’s focus would remain on getting through the current severe credit crisis, which has roiled financial markets since last August.
President Bush’s aides said Monday after the announcement that Bush was happy to let Paulson be the lead figure on this issue.
“The president’s point of view is that he trusts Secretary Paulson to put forward what he thinks is a constructive plan,” White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters traveling with Bush aboard Air Force One to Ukraine on Monday.
She said administration officials will work with lawmakers in hopes of having constructive conversations. Asked if Bush’s goal is to get the overhaul approved before he leaves office, Perino said: “We’ll have to see. It’s a big attempt.”
“Secretary Paulson has been working on this package for about a year, so it’s not like pulling a rabbit out a hat,” Perino added. “It’s very constructive, deliberate thinking amongst the best minds in economics.”
For his part, Paulson rejected Democratic charges that it was lax regulation of mortgage brokers and the financial industry that had led to the current problems.
“I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current market turmoil,” he said. “I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer or even that more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market stress that seem to occur every five to 10 years.”
Banking groups raised strong objections to the plan while other industry groups had mixed reactions.
“Dismantling the thrift charter and crippling state banking charters will weaken banking in America,” said Edward Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association.
In Congress, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, who is working on his own regulatory revamp, called Paulson’s proposal a “constructive step forward” but said it wouldn’t give the Federal Reserve enough authority to carry out its expanded job to police the stability of the entire financial system.
Many Democrats said that Congress’ first priority should be to deal with the current mortgage crisis that is threatening millions of Americans with the loss of their homes and that an extensive debate on a regulatory overhaul should not occur until a new president is in office next year.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said in an appearance on CBS’ “Early Show” that it was not a failure of the regulatory scheme but “a failure of leadership” that led to the current crisis.
The proposed overhaul would be the most extensive since the current regulatory system was created in response to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression.
It comes at a time when the financial system faces its most severe credit crisis in two decades, one that has resulted in billions of dollars of losses for big banks and investment houses and the near-collapse of Bear Stearns, the country’s fifth-largest investment bank.
The rising tide of bad debt has made it harder for consumers and businesses to get credit, further weighing on an economy struggling with a prolonged housing slump and soaring energy prices. Many economists believe the country is already in a recession.
Financial overhaul at-a-glance
By The Associated Press Mon Mar 31,2008 3:12 AM ET
The Bush administration’s plan to overhaul financial regulation, as outlined in a summary obtained by The Associated Press, would:
_Expand the role of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets to include the entire financial sector rather than just financial markets.
_Create a federal commission, the Mortgage Origination Commission, to develop uniform, minimum licensing standards for mortgage market participants.
_Close the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates thrift institutions, and move those functions to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates banks.
_Merge the functions of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission into the Securities and Exchange Commission to create one agency to provide unified oversight of the futures and securities industries.
_Establish an Office of National Insurance within the Treasury Department to regulate those in the insurance industry who want to operate under an optional federal charter.
_Work to establish as a long-term goal three major regulators: the Federal Reserve as a “market stability regulator”; a “prudential financial regulator” to take over the functions of five separate banking regulators; and a “business conduct regulator” to regulate business conduct and consumer protection.
“1Malaysia” has no political or social theory. It has no philosophy and no concern for the truth. In a given situation it will accept any theory that might prove useful and it will abandon that theory as soon as the situation changes.
Just like the “Co-Prosperity” slogan the Japanese used for their colonization of Asia
How to expect a spastic from Umno leadership to make changes for a better Malaysia. Korek, Korek, Korek will perpetually by the slogan of UMNO.
YB, “LOVERBOY” is from a privileged political family…does he appreciate the financial well being of the people? and,…. running the country with the highest integrity and dignity…dream on folks!
After RCI, Korek,Korek,Korek is still a free man!!! TDM is saying what he likes to say (freedom of speech of the highest order). What an irony!!! No wonder BN dont like RCI as it is useless and wasting time and money!!! I would agree with them on this as there’s no follow up on the findings and recommendations!!!
Whether it is ONE MALAYSIA or WAWASAN 2020, these are but empty and unsincere calls by UMNO Presidents and which will never materialize even when the sun rises in the WEST!
Some people said; Once a Nazi, always a Nazi!!! Only God can help them, but they always think that their God think the same way as them!!!They belong to the Supreme Race meant to be Tuan to other races!!!
In Parliament yesterday, the Pekan MP denied that his huge stimulus packages had failed although he had revised our nation’s economic growth further down into the negative region.
He mentioned Singapore as an example where there is also a negative growth forecast and sarcastically asked whether it meant that the measures put forth by the Singaporean government against the global economic crisis is also failure.
However, it’s probable that the Pekan MP has forgotten that in a matter of weeks after the global financial meltdown had begun last year, the Singaporean government had announced a technical recession, provided a negative growth forecast for the first time, and had begun to take preventive & defensive measures, but at the same time, the Malaysian government was still in a wait-and-see mode, believing that it would not be badly hit…
It is perfectly OK for UMNO aka Nazis to let the majority to oppress the minority as long as they are Tuan and belong to the Supreme Race!!!
Dont use Singapore as an eg. for bad thing even if there’s one, why not emulate what is good. Najis should stand on his own merits!!! He cant give excuses that Singapore also have recession to justify for his failure!!! If that’s the case, he should use UK parliamentarian falseful claims to justify for Malaysian MPs’ actions!!!
Najib knows that his Umno is for “Ketuanan Malayu”and Islam.He knows and we know the 1Malaysia is a bluff.He also wants to be the people’s prime minister,that’s an other bluff.Call off these bluff,renounce “Ketuanan Malayu”,make Umno a malaysian national party,ask all BN component parties to dissolve and join Umno the United malaysian national organisation.That’s should what Najib be talking if he wants to achieve 1 Malaysia and the people’s prime minister.Moreover if he wants to achieve “people first and performance now ” Najib should now talk about malaysian and treat every citizen as equal irrespective of race,religion and culture.
///HIS 1 MALAYSIA WAS INTENDED TO UNITE THE WHOLE NATION TO CONSIST OF ONE PEOLE, ONE NATION. However at the same time, he continues to support Umno’s policy of ketuanan Melayu. How is it possible for the people to be one people, when at the same time he allows a political party of which he is president to struggle for a divisive ketuanan Melayu policy?///– Dr Chen
Najib was trying to give the impression as stated above. But his true intention is to give himself more time to promise that better days will come in the future without the intention of fulfilling them. This is similar to the approach adopted by TDM when he should have declared the end of NEP in 1991 he announced the vision 2020 for Bangsa Malaysia, and thus conveniently extended NEP indefinitely. The not too smart PM AAB announced that he was going to be fair to all Malaysians, and declared that NEP would stay until 2057. Najib is using the 1Malaysia to replace Bangsa Malaysia so that he too would ignore the deadline of 2020.
It is clear that the succeeding UMNO presidents would just lead the people, the non-Malays up the garden path to watch the mirage of Malaysian Malaysia without any intention of honouring their promises. Razak died early, and based on the behaviour of the son, he might be equally bad had he lived. UMNO presidents prevented Malays from accepting Malaysia as a country where all Malaysians would be willing to accept each others as equal, in opportunity and responsibility. As it stands it would be better for Malaysia to be colonized so that at least the countrymen would be equal. In fact without unity, re-colonization of Malaysia could happen readily, when there is a taker.
As the world is facing unprecedented financial and economic storms, it is now the perfect timing for a world war. As all our military equipment for good for joy ride other than the commission/service charge payment opportunity, surrender of the country would be fast and efficient. There might not even be hot war involved, but unity among the people would be assured, albeit all become second-class citizens, bowing only to occupation forces.
UMNO’s greed knows no bound. If TDM would rather have Malaysia remained a colony than lost to Chen Ping to have this place turned to become Singapore, it might be better for all Malaysians to be united as second class citizens.
The Chinese and Indian (non-bumi) is 1 Malaysia. The Malay(bumi) is another 1 Malaysia.
There is no 1 Malaysia, the UMNO called themself Bumiputra and Call us (Chinese and Indian) Non-Bumiputra(meaning not born in Malaysia).
They are still using the bullying tactics( More Malay bully the lesser majority). That is why bringing in more Indon is important to them.
We are 1Malaysia all right but never a 1Malaysiana . We are a 1Malaysia with split Malaysians. Thanks to the tremendous efforts put in by UMNO.
“LACK OF TRANSPARENCY. Any government can have the best of strategies and plans, but if there is lack of transparency the projects will not take off but will flop badly.”
it will take off if it is correctly planned and executed except it will lack the transparency needed to enable the government to claim itself as a free and democratic government.
meanwhile it will have to decide if it wants to go down the road as a model of transparent failure or a transparent success
Dr.Chen said it all.
It needs an MCA dog..to twist and turn facts into fictions.
Who is the dog and who is Dr.Chen…everyone know.
the bn government may be an example of the former but transparency has nothing to do with success. it is a value a freely elected and democratic government should be striving to achieve. the greatest democracy in the world is not fully transparent.
///THE NEP BAGGAGE. In these hard times of recession, foreign direct investments provide a life to the economy. Unfortunately the FDIs have fallen precipitously last year and projected to dive down by 60% for this years. PM Najib has worked hard to get China and Singapore to invest in Malaysia. We must advise and warn the PM that unless he revokes the investment unfriendly NEP all his efforts will come nought. All the goodwill he has engendered will vanish, when the foreign investor see that Malaysia’s terms are unattractive.///– Dr Chen
How can any reasonable person accept the argument that a community having been given special assistance for 50 years would still require more so that the race would not disappear under the Malaysian sun? This is most untenable when it was easy to add to the race whether through natural growth or assimilation; the mammaks are ever ready to call themselves Malays, and the project M in Sabah brought in millions who are hardy and more competitive for local indigenous Malays.
The only reason UMNO wants NEP to remain is that the powers-that-be could bully the minority group with impunity because the decades old practice has proven that victims could not resist for fear of the worse, when May 13 now known to be organised was repeatedly used to remind them. NEP is racist in nature, and it has not made the different races accept each other despite the price non-Malays had paid through institutionalised discrimination, so that the Malays would catch up. The unequal treatment under NEP has not brought racial harmony; there are about 1500 clashes with racial overtones a year, a number unheard of before NEP.
Najib’s 1Malaysia is just a slogan, and it has the hidden message giving the impression that the time for equal treatment of all Malaysians is a long term objective not attainable in decades to come
NEP – Nation Evil Plan – A scheme to lead the SELFISH GREEDY MALAYSIAN to be fallen in evil life, an evil reputation.
Introduced us the KPI evaluation systems for BN cabinets like a report card of exams for school students..but why need to wait for next elections if PM founds there is some his ministries not doing their duties? May I suggest that actions should be taken like warning to buck up then after 6 months still no improvement..next steps is terminate his services.
We pay their salaries plus his benefits..rakyat money not PM money.
What happen to Koh Tsu Khoon..person in-charge of KPI doing?
I guess he has no guts to issue warning or write a report to PM of some BN or UMNO wrong doing. Just a gimmick for BN (a poster boy for BN slogan)??
Perhaps Mr. LKS ask him, did he issued any warning letters to his unproductive members in the cabinets??
Jeff Ooi reports that Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh cornered Najib with the question during Question Time, 15/6/09.
Najib today denied in the Parliament that he had uttered a battlecry to \bathe the keris with Chinese blood\ allegedly delivered at the TPCA Stadium, Kampung Baru, in the run-up to the infamous Operation Lalang in 1987.
However, one blogger \ZV\, (short for ZUKRI VALENTENO) who lists himself as a Bernama reporter from 1983-1994, had insisted in a Rockybru discussion that Najib DID utter those words,
and ZV insists that he did hear it, as he was a journalist covering the rally for Bernama then.
However, ZV says that Najib was not the only one to say it.
Who to believe, a Bernama reporter who was covering the event then, or Najib?
dranony,
I know this reporter ZV very well and what he said is true. Mind you for someone who has been a press sec to several info ministers, what ZV said is accurate. And it proves that Najib is a liar
IF what ZV said is true, then Najib, would have lied in Parliament,
while answering Karpal’s question, wouldn’t he?
Misleading Parliament intentionally, is a serious thing, isn’t it?
For once I agree with kontiki.
Yes it is…dranony….but UMNO have broken so many rules and laws in Parliament…that lying is small matter.
No use for PR to protest. All will be gunned down by BN pack of liars.
Remember…the ” Mr.Speaker”…who is supposed to have final say…is all for UMNO..not for Malaysians.
We have kangaroo courts and Parliament sessions too.