Thai Militants Given Citenzship?

Pic from Bangkok Post.
(Nine soldiers providing teacher security were wounded when a bomb was detonated under their patrol vehicle in the southern province of Narathiwat this morning).
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Thailand had claimed that there were between 50,000 and 100,000 people holding dual citizenship, and many militants were hiding in Malaysia after committing violence in the restive south.

Malaysia and Thailand had previously agreed to present the number of suspected people holding dual citizenship before their respective authorities and make comparisons to determine if they had such status.

THAI Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is making his first official visit to Malaysia since assuming power last December, said the southern issue would definitely be on the agenda with Datuk Seri Najib.

'We hope Malaysia will continue with its cooperation to solve the southern issue and help us maintain peace in the area. This includes asking for intelligence-sharing,' he said.

Is the government giving citizenship to Thai militants?

Read HERE

Malaysian Government Needs to Borrow Money

Standard & Poor has rated an A-minus for Malaysia and said that its credit standing was constrained by a weaker fiscal position and the government’s contingent liabilities.

One or two more notches downwards and we will be close to junk bond status, S&P ratings are from AAA (best quality) AA (good quality) A (can be affected by changing economic situation) and BBB (just satisfactory at the moment) and any other grades lower are known as non-investment grade also called junk bonds.

You can read the full report in the link below but let me translate it for you here in layman’s term is that the rating agency (S&P) is concerned with the ballooning budget deficit which is at 8.5% of GDP as per the budget for 2009 which will see a budget deficit of RM.53.8 billion for the year or more if we were to include earlier and other stimulus packages which might be announced if the GDP continues to decline in coming quarters. And the debt servicing for the year 2008 alone amounts to about RM 30 billion.

And it said that gross government debt would rise to 47.9 percent of GDP (GDP is approximately RM 740 billion for the year 2008) which is the sum total of our national debt. The National Debt as at 2008 is over RM300 billion as compared to the RM 80 billion in 1997 which has more than tripled since than and about 2/3 of the national debt was incurred during the last 10 years and since 1970 we have had budget deficits every year except for 5 years of surplus from 1993 to 1997.

'The stable outlook reflects S&P's expectation that, despite the increase in Malaysia's fiscal deficit and the delay of fiscal consolidation in near term, the government will be able to refinance without a significant increase in interest rates or negative implications for the economy,' it said.

S&P said it was because of Malaysia's reasonably deep financial market, the public pension fund and social security funds, which could absorb some of the new government securities, and the country's net external position.

When there is a budget deficit than you would need to borrow to cover the deficit and our government will presently turn to the domestic market for most of its funding needs but for this huge sum it will mop up liquidity in the system and less funds will than be available to the private sector which might restrict the financial efficiency of doing business. When S&P says public pension funds and social security funds they are referring to EPF, Petronas, PNB and etc.

One thing that worries me are the contingent liabilities (Contingent Liabilities are hidden or uncertain liabilities), we don’t know how much federal government guarantees are out in the market as the Malaysian government seems to be extending guarantees to both privateers and government link companies (GLC) like the PKFZ (Port Klang Free Zone) with its RM12.5 billion losses and how much of it has been accounted for? And don’t forget the Trengganu Investment Fund of RM 10 billion set up on the back of a federal government guarantee. What about the adventurous multi billion ringgit development of the Iskandar development region of the state of Johor and the Bakun project of Sarawak and how much of federal government guarantee or liabilities are we exposed to?

Why can't our government be more prudent with money and balance its budget or be like China or like its little neighbor Singapore that generates surplus budgets and have created a huge reserve of savings which they can dip into in times of crisis like this.

Barisan National don’t have to pay the debt and all this huge deficit that they have created will have to be paid by its citizen and future citizens to come which is all our children and their children.

Read S&P report HERE

note: all figures quoted are only estimate and approximate.

One Black Durian

(Pic from the Star)

One black durian anyone.... think this will make a good symbol for Chin Huat's 1black Malaysia. The durian mysteriously turned black at Dataran Tanjung Emas and gave a shock to the Muar Municipal Council.

And it appeared smack in the middle of the state of Johor, the stronghold of umno.

Is this an omen like black clouds portending a storm?

The Star Story here.

WHY IS RPK IN AUSTRALIA?

Raja Pete was granted a research fund by the WWF and the ICJ to carryout a research on the Kangaroos which is endemic to the land of Australia. He has been commissioned to accomplish this research due to his many experiences with this species which have recently been seen out of their native soil.

This endemic species seems to have evolved and turned cosmopolite and have been sighted briefly in various countries mostly in big cities. And they normally settle in cities with third world mentality, these cosmopolite specie are neoendemic (refers to species that has diverged and become isolated or one that has formed through hybridization) and isolated to the judiciary and they thrive on a diet of the greed foliage.

RPK was seen in Brisbane as he was there with his research team at Kangaroo Point Cliff studying a past event where some kangaroos blinded by the sham virus which caused blindness jump off the cliff at Kangaroo Point Cliff also known as Kangaroo Jump.

RPK was also seen in Jakarta, Indonesia where he was having tea with President Susilo Bambang apparently trying to find out how the Indonesian successfully purges the Kangaroo out of their courts.

RPK was last seen tracking a large pack of wild kangaroos running across Woolloomooloo with Marina tailing along carrying a laptop in her arm as reported by the Finger Wharf of Australia.

Hopefully we could get access to his research findings and report further.




Note: WWF = World Wildlife Fund
ICJ = International Court of Justice

Sick and Tired of Crime in this Country!

(Pic from zorro)

Zorro was a victim of an attempted snatch thief today.

Just a week ago Pat walk in to the wharf and complained that his wife’s handbag has been snatched in the crowded vicinity of old town PJ and the week before another friend’s old Aunty was a victim of another snatch thief and she was knocked unconscious while walking to work in the morning and had to be admitted to the hospital all bleeding on the head.

We all had friends and relatives who have been victims of crime and from the scary stories going around you can easily estimate that at least ½ of the population in the cities of Malaysia were at one time or the other been victims of crime. I myself had my apartment broken into and my project sites had countless incident of crime from snatch thieves, burglaries, break in, stolen site equipments, and one of my managers held at gun point, stole his Storm vehicle and emptied his pocket right down to murder during a robbery at one of the mini market in the township development where the proprietor of the mini mart was stab to death.

One of my business partner had his apartment completely cleaned out and another friend was victim in an upmarket condominium in Bukit Damansara right in her condo when two guys jump on her right at her doorstep and rob her apartment, she had develop such psychological fear that she now has moved to Singapore with her children but the husband had to stay as he work here in this city.

Crime is a reflection of bad governance where the government had failed to provide for the basic necessity of protection and security for its people. Our government and the police is either at a loss or not bothered to put a stop to this crime frenzy in this country. In countries of good governance you don’t hear much of snatch thieves and such incidents are very rare and I recalled a very rare incident of a snatch thief in the city of Singapore as reported in the local media and immediately the following day the thief was caught and the stolen items returned to the victim and this is the difference of a developed nation and a third world country.

The rise in crime is also an indication of a breakdown in the social structure and in line with the rise of poverty and economic hardship to the populace and a failure of the government’s focus on the overall economics to provide for basic necessities and at times especially in developing and third world countries where they overlook the contributions of the shadow economy (is also known as the underground economy and usually at a higher proportion in lesser countries) in providing stability to the social order when laws and governance are weak (usually encouraging corruption) and not with the times (outdated laws) and thus creating a psychological mentality of being deprived of the basic right for survival made worse by bad laws that oppresses the society at large.

It is funny that high crime rate are also associated with oppressive governments (oppressive governments are also associated with corruptions as an oppressive rule is devoid of love for its people) when you would expect that with harsh laws there will be lesser crimes but that is not the case every time. Which reminds me of the Confucius doctrine of ruling with virtue and not with force and that one must rule with love as a father loves his child.

“If people are inspired by a moral and virtuous government than people will want to be good because they have a sense of shame in doing wrong” ~ Confucius


Read zorro's story HERE

Who Said Election Is A Waste Of Time?

Who Said Election Is A Waste Of Time?

The Election system is the most sacred of any democratic institution and the fundamental of all decent human actions towards the creation of peace, prosperity and progress of a country and to say that it is a waste of time and or money is an insult and a show of disrespect to the very constitution enshrined into the charter of all responsible nation.

Any dim wit attempt to ridicule this very humane process is a transgression of basic human and constitutional rights towards its people and the nation. Its a shameful insult to the voters and the people.

The nature of the voting system in an election process is for the elected officials or political parties to be made accountable to the very people of the country that they serve and to return to the people at fix interval for their approval and endorsement to continue or otherwise.

The act of casting a vote is a sacred act in this modern world and all votes so casted must bear equitable count as in one man one vote count so as to reflect a clean, open and fair electoral system and in so doing preserve the sanctity of the democratic institution of being human, of being a citizen, of embracing the spirit of integrity of loyalty and of morality.

Any attempt to gerrymander the electoral system is an act of evil that cheats your fellow man, your brothers and sisters, your children and grandchildren and their children and your mother and all mankind in depriving him the sacred vote of one vote count.

Gerrymandering is the act of unfairly redistributing the electoral district or constituency boundaries and in the apportionment of voters per district whereby where there is an opposition area the district is adjusted to pack in more voters and thereby reducing the opposition representation and if it is an incumbent district it is further divided into two or more constituency containing less voters and thus giving more numbers of representation. A reflection of a fair election is when the political parties garnered 51% of the votes than their representation should equals to 51% in the house. Gerrymandering attempts to gives the incumbent an unfair advantage and is a despicable act of thievery.

She said election is a waste of time HERE

TECHNICAL RECESSION?

TECHNICAL RECESSION?

The Malaysian Government released the first quarter GDP (Gross Domestic Product) result for 2009 which showed a worst than expected decline of -6.2% forcing the Central Bank to again revised its outlook for the year to a negative growth of between -4 to -5%.

"The revision is due to very weak external demand as well as falling private sector investment and FDI (foreign direct investment) flows," says the Prime Minister.

The condition of the external environment was "far worse than expected," he added. The Government had earlier estimated GDP to grow at 1% or to contract up to 1%.

"Although the fourth quarter is likely to be positive, the overall growth for the year is still negative because the first quarter is negative and the expected negative growth in the second and third quarters," he told a media briefing at his office here.

The Prime Minister had also said that two quarters of negative growth would translate into a technical recession. And it was also reported by Bernama (National News Agency) that the PM says that we are now in a technical recession.

Ok I am lost here.. Can you guys help me to interpret this statement on the technical recession as we don’t yet have two quarters of negative growth (the gdp quarterly table for 2008 as above)?

My interpretation of his statement is that we are now in a technical recession but is short of a real recession, is that what the PM is saying?

The general consensus among economist in the definition of an economic recession is two consecutive quarters or six months of GDP contraction or decline (be it negative or otherwise). And with this definition Malaysia has long been in a recession since 2008 as you can see from the table above that every quarter in 2008 has been declining.

The Malaysian government has not yet declared an official recession and has denied on many occasion by proclaiming that the country could avoid a recession.

Earlier Post on Recession HERE.