The SUPP leadership does not want the Sibu voters in the “By-election of the Century” in Sarawak to be concerned about big national issues – and this is the great difference between the DAP and Pakatan Rakyat on the one hand and the SUPP and the Barisan Nasional on the other.
In fact, today I ask the Sibu voters and Sarawak people to ponder one serious question: Can Malaysia go the way of Greece becoming a bankrupt country and if Malaysia is bankrupt, can Sarawak be spared its awful consequences?
There was recently a television documentary regarding Greece ‘s financial fiasco, enumerating the why’s and how’s that this historic and beautiful country came to grief.
The diagnosis as to how the great nation of Greece ended as a financial “basket-case” are:
Bureaucracy: Greece’s bureaucracy is famous in the whole of Europe ! To open a cafe or pub there are 25 processes to go through! This is a country of rules and regulations.
Bloated civil service: There are 1.05 million civil servants (excluding police and armed forces) . The population of Greece is only 10 million! More than 10% are govt servants! Salary increases every year and benefit for civil servants in Greece is one of the best in Europe! More and more money is needed to upkeep this bloated civil service . The retirement age is 62 yrs old.
Corruption: Greece is the most corrupted nation in the Eurozone. Citizens pay “under table ” money to:
# admit into a public hospital
# pass a driving licence
# to enter public service
# renovate your business premises or your home
# avoid income tax
Every govt project is awarded to political cronies and at hugely inflated prices! Transparency International compared the prices of the construction costs of stadiums built for the Athens Olympics recently with similar structures in China –500% more expensive than the Chinese , compared to Los Angeles and Sydney — 50 % more expensive!! All these with tax payers money and borrowings!
Tax evasion: Officially 80% of its citizens are supposed to pay tax but only 37% are doing so. Big businessmen and corporations have refined tax evasion to a fine art (or have the tax men taken some coffee money?)
No transparency in governance: The politicians and bureaucrats falsified economic data and painted a rosy and manageable picture while the economy was rotting away.
Unabated borrowings: Meanwhile, the politicians and bureaucrats continue to issue government bonds to keep afloat, series after series. They were trying to cover up the financial mess they have created creating one big hole to cover up the previous!
Lacking political will power to reform: To keep hold on to political power, politicians are prepared to lie, commit economic and political fraud. If reforms were taken some five years ago, the country need not go bankrupt and its citizens need not suffer so much. Political expediency and greed to political power over-rides everything and hence Greece is now a bankrupt country. Luckily, it is part of the European Union and its currency is EUROs, otherwise Greeks will have to eat grass to survive!
Laid back attitude: Tourism is THE ONLY industry in Greece and over the years the Greeks have had an easy time. Many flocked to see the historical sites and enjoy summer vacation on the islands. But they forgot that not many tourists will return after visiting the sites –there are so many other tourists attractions in the world, maybe more exotic and perhaps cheaper! So once tourism wanes and coupled with higher costs of living, the Greeks could not and refused to adapt and transform – still partying and having a nice time; maybe the Greek Gods will bless them! Greece have no natural resources, no electronics industry, no R & D –no anything! They were so laid-back –cannot see what is coming and crashing down on them. Even now, the civil servants refused to take a pay cut — the world owes them a living!
Conclusion: The producer of the documentary had hired a taxi driver to go around while doing this documentary. The taxi driver had studied economics for four years in US and this was his parting words:
“My biggest mistake was returning 15 years ago, I should have stayed back in US. My nationalist instinct made me returned. The politicians screwed me. I loved my country but my country did not love me.”
Can Malaysia go the way of Greece?
The people of Sibu, Sarawak and Malaysia can see that many of the factors which had brought down the great historic nation of Greece to its knees, begging for European financial rescue, are already to be found in Malaysia after 53 years of Merdeka in 1957 and 47 years since the formation of Malaysia.
It is not that the Barisan Nasional leaders are not aware of the national crisis facing Malaysia, although they would only admit it in rare moments.
One such rare occasion is the publication of the New Economic Model (NEM) crafted by national and international experts who are not in the Barisan Nasional Cabinet
The report of the New Economic Model warned that “the progress we have made over the past half-century has slowed and economic growth prospects have weakened considerably”.
It said that Malaysia is “caught in a middle income trap – we are not amongst the top performing global economies”.
It also admitted that “Our economic growth has come at considerable environmental cost and has not benefited all segments of the population. The government must confront these realities and make tough decisions.”
Lets look at some of the ill afflicting Malaysia which have been identified by the New Economic Model (NEM):
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“We are not developing talent and what we have is leaving. The human capital situation in Malaysia is reaching a critical stage. The rate of outmigration of skilled Malaysians is rising rapidly.”
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“The gap between rich and poor is widening.”
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“Almost all economies of East Asia are poised to achieve high economic growth in this decade. But Malaysia runs the imminent risk of a downward spiral and faces the painful possibility of stagnation.
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Grave problem of “rent-seeking, patronage and often opague government procurement. This has engendered pervasive corruption, which needs to be addressed earnestly.”
The NEM gave a stern warning: “We must act now before our position deteriorates any further”.
All these ills of Malaysia sounds very familiar to the ills of Greece! The very same problems of corruption; abuse of power; cronyism instead of meritocracy; brain drain; public confidence in the major institutions of governance like the civil service, the judiciary, police, the anti-corruption agency, election commission; etc.
Have SUPP leadership showed any concern over the unchecked decline of Sibu, Sarawak and Malaysia?
Let the people of Sibu ask the SUPP leadership this question:
“Can Malaysia go the way of Greece becoming a bankrupt country and can Sarawak be spared if Malaysia is bankrupt?”
Sibu church leaders must pray 4 justice, do d right thing, n spread d message of d Gospel
God helps those who help themselves n want change/reform 4 d better
Let Sibu b d leading CHAMPION of change, d Chariots of Fire dat burn d corrupt/racist BN away; burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire
///Can Malaysia go the way of Greece?/// (Kit)
London School of Economics Professor Danny Quah has already forewarned that Malaysia could find itself in the same fiscal mess currently facing several European countries such as Greece if planned economic reforms are not undertaken. He even cautioned that when Malaysia becomes a net oil importer by 2014, the national economy could face difficulty as the country is one of the most sensitive to oil price volatility.
How can the SUPP leadership be so ignorant? The work of an MP is not just cleaning clogged drains and clearing rubbish heaps but also getting involved in big national issues which affect Malaysians and the Sibu people.
Conditions in Greece and here have lots of similarities. Greece budget deficit was 14% and they
went burst. Here it is about 7%. Are we halfway
there?
Let’s say a Malaysian has wrongly consumed medicine by misreading instructions due to his poor command of the English language (caused by the incompetent teachers who taught him the subject).
Can he sue the ministry of education for attempted murder?
yhsiew, do you know why prof danny quah is in LSE? Not good enough. Dats it. Simple as dat. Uitm has lots of better qualified and more intellectual experts. Take for example our universe famous Tan Sri Dato Seri Datuk Dr Prof Emiritus Apapunboleh bin Similanchiaopunok. He is the present mega chief super special economic adviser to the autobots in planet cyberton. [pssst. Rumours are abound that he has just been headhunted by God to serve as God’s special apa-apa advisers. Yeah. Wow!]
So you see. Pleeeeease. Oh pleease. Dont compare apples and oranges. Dont compare umno with anything else. Umno has no equal. Look. The chinese believe that some people could block the entire sky with just the palm of their hands. But hey jib could prop up the whole universe with the upright middle finger of his left hand.
So no malaysia will not go the greek way. Jib’s middle finger will hold the country up.
Jib Jib Boleh.
“Are we halfway
there?” sctan above
Put it this way. We are 3 feet into the grave, and that’s why UMNO is agitated and kicking out at all and sundry. What they don’t realise is that by kicking out vigorously, they are helping us to go even deeper into the grave, for which there may be no return.
Bolehland has been kept afloat all this while because of our natural resources. We have no talent to talk about since the talent all migrated years ago.
A closer example of what Bolehland is likely to turn into years from now is the Philippines. The small pool of rich landowners and politicians suppress the overwhelmingly large poor population. They keep their riches through “cooperation” with the police and the army. The poor remain poor, sitting under the rambutan tree every day smoking their homemade joints. The womenfolk all migrate to the middle east, East Asia and Singapore to find work and repatriate earnings back to the Philippines.
The leaders wouldn’t care because they have stolen enough from the people and the country. If the country bankrupt, it must be due to their ways of stealing. Only the poor ones care.
At least the senators in the Philippines are chosen by popular ballot. Look at bolehland’s “senators” who are appointed into the senate and cabinet after they have been defeated in the general elections. Our taxes go into the salaries of these defeated scum so that they can continue to milk the country dry.
And who agrees with the latest umno claim that to become a high-income country, the salaries of government servants need to be increased?
More likely than not!!!
We have bunch of sucking NEPs, NEM, educational systems & suckers in the BN/UMNO. They have been sucking national revenues & incurring huge or heaps of national debts. Those policies produce quantity of suckers, like Hanjin Chengho, who have chicken brains & tend to suck around as if they are experts and genius in everything. Hanjin Chengho even dare to challenge Uncle Lim K.S in all aspects of Malaysia politics and facets of local or international economies.
Too bad, he has been marginalized out from BN offices even though he has been wholehearted loyalty to and supporter of BN. Poor sucker, Hanjin Chengho, your mama, papa and ancestors are proud of you to be a HANJIN to all Chinese. Sucker, when are you going to hold any BN office, and there, you can be a billionaire/Millionaire fast by sucking. Yes, sucky… sucky… boom…boom… THEN our Bolehland doom… doom… Sucker, got it?
I am afraid the only solution is to abolish the monetary system. Without money we don’t have to be bankrupt!
Greece? Oh Greece is behind us now. In fact we are close behind uncle mugabe. Any closer jib and you will smell the odour of his rear crack.
Can it? Never say never, of course. But its besides the point. The story of Malaysia economically is missed opportunity and waste. But the flipside of the Malaysia story is that it has been lucky and not extremely stupid. It did open up to foreign competition and investment, it invested in infrastructure, it invested in education, albeit both could be much better done. Well, everything that Malaysia did could be better done.
The issue is really has luck run out and is the room for not doing something stupid all gone? The answer is no, not anytime soon. Will it run out and room no longer for mediocrity – eventually yes – like Greece. But we have never been that stupid. We really have never been. We did not kept our economy closed when everyone still was. We did not fight privatization when it was still controversial in West where it started. Mahathir despite all his Islamisation program in the midst of Islamic revival never wanted a legally Islamic state. We were never stupid and in the same strain, we are not likely be that stupid – not impossible but not likely.
But in between stupidity and smart or good, is a big space – a lot of missed opportunities, good and injustices. We are closer to stupidity than smart or good. Which means for all that is not bad, there is a lot more, much much more, good that we are not getting..
We may never be like Greece, but that is besides the point – we could have been Switzerland
Of cos, 1M’sia will surpass Greece
Our out-of-control bloating population will hit >30 or 40 million by 2020 – courtesy of uncontrolled immigration (legal and illegal) as well as happily fast breeding citizens
Survive on skyjuice lah
The so-called PIIGS countries – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain – have a problem very similar to that of Latvia, and unfortunately the authorities – local and European – are proposing the same solution. It is not clear that this solution – which consists mostly of budget cuts, tax increases and further shrinking of their economies – will work for these countries.
The problem is that they have a fixed – and for their level of productivity – overvalued currency. For the PIIGS countries, that is the euro. As many observers have noted, if these countries had their own national currencies, they could allow their currencies to depreciate. This would give their economies a boost by making their exports more competitive and reducing imports.
But this is only one part of the problem caused by their subordination to the euro. It is not just the impact of the euro on their trade that is crushing their economies. The more important part is that they are unable to use the expansionary fiscal and monetary policies that would help pull their economies out of recession – or worse, they are being forced to adopt “pro-cyclical” policies, as in the case of the budget cuts and tax increases being adopted in these countries.
Malaysian economies is well manage under the leadership of Najib and BN…but we are rather worried with the management of state in Penang, Kedah ,Kelantan and Selangor
You can tell that the UMNO cybertrooper above stole the writing about PIIGS from an article somewhere…and the revelation about this comes in the form of UMNO English in the last sentence….
Plagiarism is very much a part of Umno’s culture. Here we have chengho demonstrated it very well for us to see..
PIIGS Countries Being Led to the Slaughter, Should Re-Think Euro
btw, chengho, do you still dream of Altantuya :) ?
Without Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia would have gone bankrupt long time ago.
I hope this time voters in Sibu will give BN a good trashing, and then kick BN/UMNO out during the coming GE, and then sell Malaya to Indonesia for FREE.
What chengho refuse to talk about is why did Greece join the Euro in the first place – because it WANTED a stronger currency – it basically wanted to inflate asset and income so that it could quickly put money into their pockets. Behind the politician thought also was even if they had to move on structural changes, they could blame it on the EU rather take the blame themselves.
In other words, Greece problem with the EU started with their own attitude of looking at quick and easy solutions the same as Malaysia under BN rather than self-focus on long term structural changes.
That is also ultimately UMNO/BN plan – when things go down the toilet, they will give the excuse its what people wanted because they voted for them. Its always someone else fault never theirs and the system does not check those excuses.
Talking cock…Chengho is best.
Wow, and for one second, I actually thought chengho suddenly was able to string a few credible paragraphs in English….
Why do we need NEM? I tell you this: there will be many countries from now on copying the Greek economic model. What is the problem, spend and spend, and when in debt, IMF and EU will come to their rescue.
This is farting Eunuch was talking half baked Mahathirnomics in equally half baked English.
greece got bailed out at a hefty price to be paid by its future generations…The Euro is too important for the european to let slide because of one recalcitrant state…Malaysia do not have a union of any sort, when the crunch hit us. May Zeus also look kindly on us.
Do some research old man in the net , Should we follow China economic model?
Vote for BN good for your health..
aduhai malaysia…badminton kalah kepada jepun tadi. bolasepak pulak dah lama kecundang kepada jepun. hoki pulak sekarang ni tak digeruni negara jepun. ekonomi pulak tak terkejar kejar negara jepun. dasar pandang ke timur ? layu…malaysia. sebab ? sibuk berpolitik sampai negara dah nak bankrup pun tak tahu
Everyone seems to know exactly where we are heading..oblivion. But unlike the red shirts in Thailand…none are willing to cross the line…..that is the real reason, UMNO walks arrogantly tall…
If a farting eunuch starts to talk economics, we know for sure the economy is in trouble. I am as sure as night following day this farting eunuch would NOT know the difference between economic, economics, economy and economical. The b*stardisation of Malaysia has finally completed with this eunuch the best product of that b*stardisation programme.
Malaysia debt level of RM360 billion as at end of last year is equivalent to over 50% of nation GDP. This trend is very worrying as our federal government continue to run with deficit every year means that debt level will rising. Mega projects still the ‘dream’ of BN leaders just for the sake of creating projects. The lessons not learned from 1997 financial crisis. Most recently Peter Chin was ‘dreaming’ mega nuclear power plant.
Pakatan had proven that Penang government is able to run with surplus which previous BN government run with deficit for many years. If right practice put in place, the country still have hope. Save Malaysia campaign to topple BN is utmost important.
Greece debt crisis is worrying for Malaysia; when mountain high debt was hide for too long with false statistic.
Please watch Buletin Utama, TV1,TV2,TV9,8TV, Astro Awani and Bernama for “unbiased” report on sibu by-election..This is the source of news for people in Sibu, so we can say that possibility of corrupted BN to win is sky high..Buletin Utama last nite without shame showing one steam roll moving to build a new road at small kampong in Sibu and at the bottom of the screen its write “pembangunan untuk rakyat”..with stupid 1 malaysia style music
Plagiarizing is not doing research. For f sake, attribute the author with the quotes and not try to pass off as your own.
With bunch of suckers like ChangeHole/Chengho, our Bolehland definitely heading toward bankruptcy.
Likewise, sending more of our space tourists, absolutely not classified as astronauts as our Bolehland self-proclaims, aboard Russian spacecraft to perform Tek Tarik or vacuum farts would be worst off than Greece bankruptcy….
Malaysia has already bankrupted with a Government who cannot stick to their jobs/duties from PM down to the Police/KUP/AG or any officers/clerks who have a duty to perform. Ministers have no shoulder to face inquiry in the Parliament even with obvious scandals or misappropriation of funds or power. How many MP or state assemblyman really serve the People!!
Bankruptcy because laws are set for the protection of care-no government departments, for the convenience of getting power but no obligation. With convenience of raising money but no monitoring or out of Government Auditing.
Bankruptcy could easily come if one care to see how real are the books of big enterprises, especially those concerning land and properties. How many are based on mis-appropriated public land or land?
Bankruptcy can also come as there are a lot of malpractices by the professionals in the law or accounting sections and the engineering sectors.
Bankruptcy because big companies are mal-practicing, such as some time-sharing runners.
Bankruptcy because any problems in big organisations, they can either silent or give a marry-go-round that turn the clients into nowhere!!
Bankruptcy because the Ethnic to have thing done correctively, responsibly and legally had gone!!
What can be found in Malaysia are Bubbles of Administration, and…….!!!