TO ALL MALAYSIANS: HAPPY 2014!

Recently I have been driving a loved one who has a 2-month stint in one of the government departments in Putrajaya.

I approached the task of driving back and forth from Putrajaya with pleasure. Firstly, from the point of view of landscaping and vegetation, Putrajaya is maturing quite nicely. There is less and less of the annoying palms and more and more leafy trees. This is transforming Putrajaya into a pleasant garden city.

In the evening segment of the driving I will go earlier and hang out at the Dataran Putrajaya. As the sun sets the square teems with families and vendors of toys. Kites are flying. It is an unexpected sight for me. When Putrajaya was in its infancy the square was a dead desert. Now it is a wonderful gathering place for families. It has found a purpose. It's a wonderful sight to see children, parents, cyclists, kite-flyers, visitors and vendors all mesh together just taking in the great agora that Dataran Putrajaya offers...all of this with the Prime Minister's Office building looming over the square in an benign, avuncular ambience.

After doing the pickup, we were driving along Persiaran Perdana or Putrajaya Boulevard when I spied a huge bazaar behind the young trees along the boulevard. It was the Pasarina or the Pasar Malam Putrajaya that has been up over the past week. I just had to pull up when I saw the banner for my favourite drink, Coconut Shake. Add to the great drink were all the great pasar malam food. It was an amazing sight to have a pasar malam right at the boulevard within all the government and ministry buildings. Amazing! Nice.

I know some may feel uncomfortable that a pasar malam, a typical Malaysian setting, sprouts up right at the seat of power. It is an interesting contrast. A kampung feel right in the heart of the Putrajaya. I loved it. I thought it reflected Malaysia being very comfortable with itself.

My wish for Malaysia is for Malaysians to just be comfortable with each other. Politics and politicians have their work and their attention-seeking tendencies. 

In many ways, politicians are a side-show of circus freaks. I don't need to name the clowns. I'm sure we each have our favourites.

The true Malaysia is out in the real world...it does not live in cyberspace which hate words and twisted tales inhabit. The real Malaysia is a place where Malaysians smile in greeting and express gratitude freely. That is the world that I have been inhabiting these past months. 

The true Malaysia is a happy place spoiled from time to time by stupid political leaders from both sides of the aisle.

HAPPY 2014 TO ALL MALAYSIANS!

Reviving the UMNO-MCA spirit

I'm not ignoring the fact and existence of BN as a large coalition of political parties. But, whatever one may say, we cannot ignore that the original duumvirate was UMNO and MCA.

Recall my blog post some time ago here about the personal friendship between Ong Yoke Lin of Kuala Lumpur MCA Branch (later Tun Omar Ong Yoke Lin, past Speaker of Dewan Negara and founder of the air-conditioning company, OYL Industries Bhd) and Datuk Yahaya bin Abdul Razak of Kuala Lumpur UMNO Branch that had led to the idea for an UMNO-MCA alliance to contest the Kuala Lumpur Municipal elections in 1952.

Times may have changed. Players may be different.

What remains immutable is the fact that in the current ethos UMNO and MCA, being the underpinning foundation of BN needs to dig deeper to somehow reach into the original 1952 spirit and pull it to the present.

In 1952, UMNO was, in fact, weaker than the MCA. It's hard to imagine isn't it? The giant at the time was the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP).

The MCA President of the time, Tun Sir Tan Cheng Lock was a personal friend of Dato' Onn Jaafar of the IMP.

Yet, Ong Yoke Lin and Yahya bin Abdul Razak did the scoundrel thing and, in their infinite wisdom, created the seeds of the alliance between UMNO and MCA that has lasted all this while.

I know many within the UMNO ranks of today are foaming at the mouth in a rabid desire to do what comes naturally...kill all the Chinese in one form or another. We all know that kind of thinking is unhelpful.

At the street level, UMNO people are sensible. It's only when they don their superhero UMNO cape that the id comes to the fore.

Right now, UMNO must surely realise that the MCA's travails are not merely internal.

The MCA is struggling largely because of the perception has changed.

The voters know that the UMNO-MCA relationship has not been the same since 1952. It worsened after 1969. It has become worse with the passage of years. The broader BN coalition has not helped.

So here's the rub.

Can UMNO go it alone? Will it always remain one step ahead of PAS and PKR?

Can UMNO forever make DAP the bogeyman for the Malays?

If one were to take the long view, through the prism of a telescope that starts from 1952, it may be easier to get a contextual understanding of the symbiosis between UMNO and the MCA.

Leaving aside historical nostalgia, UMNO lending the MCA some "face" makes future sense.

As with all things that require retail support, not only should UMNO and the MCA re-engage each mother more meaningfully...they must be SEEN to re-engage as near-equals.

Without this framework of understanding and common purpose no amount of "transformation" of the MCA will gain traction.

The ball is very much in UMNO's court in this respect.

UMNO must not ignore the fact that the PKR-PAS-DAP pact is reaching an apogee of sorts. The drag is setting in. Are you going to take advantage of it?

MCA: The Perils of Inheritance

It is interesting to observe some of the MCA's members and leaders uttering reminders about the moribund situation that the MCA has found itself in since 2008.

My surmise is that these utterances will fall on the deaf ears of the next crop of leaders. They are cut from the same cloth as their immediate predecessors.

This is the dilemma of wealthy families.

It is the dilemma of rich countries. Recall the saga of the tiny, formerly phosphate-rich island nation of Nauru.

This is the same dilemma for successful political parties who have parlayed their popularity and power into acquiring wealth for the political party (and, sometimes, for themselves).

A person who inherits something does not need all the traits and characteristics that defined the predecessors and formed the basis of the earlier success.

Often, the beneficiary forgets what it took for the predecessors to achieve the early success. 

Beneficiaries who inherit have a different challenge from the pioneers. It is a challenge of whether to imbibe and embrace the goal, the drive, the vim, vigour and ambition of the predecessors. It all sounds tiresome does it not?

And, so, mediocrity will set in. Industriousness, inventiveness, innovation and sheer desperation is replaced by apathy, narcissism and a basic desire to just eat the fruits and, not tend to the plants and trees from which the fruits were borne.

This is the MCA of today; wealthy beyond Croesus; as unimaginative as a blinkered horse. 

There is no sense of urgency about the impending political irrelevance and death of the political party in future General Elections.

You reap what you sow. If you demand excessive obedience you get sycophants. If you punish out-of-box thinking you get indolence.

From where the rest of us stand, any contest for MCA leadership is perceived to be no different from a shareholder proxy fight to determine who will get to manage the several billion Ringgit worth of Huaren Holdings assets. 

It is a sad inference that the political ideals and goals that got the MCA involved in the formation of Malaya and Malaysia died some time ago. Time of death...unknown.

Emotional branding, xenophobic tactics and indolence in politics

For people who read widely and voraciously on financial and economic matters there is often, but not always, a degree of realisation and awareness that politics and governance do matter very much when we look at the economic health and direction of the country.

The connection between politics and the economy of the country is in the form of revenues collected by the government in the form of income tax, sales tax, duties, excises, assessment and quit rent. The citizens and residents pay to finance the machinery of government.

The expectation of the citizens and residents is that the government will provide protection, public order and look into ways and means to maintain the welfare of its citizens and residents.

This is the simplified view of things.

When we add realpolitik and all the political skills of obfuscation and skullduggery into the mix the citizens (here, we leave out the residents because they have no voting power) sometimes get confused.

The confusion comes when the citizens cannot decide how they should think.

Should a citizen think as a member of the country and society as a whole?

Should he or she think for just the immediate family?

Should the citizen think as a follower of his or her own religion?

Should the citizen think in terms of his or her own race?

There are so many possible scenarios depending on each citizen.

But, of all the different political skills of obfuscation and skullduggery, the greatest evil, in my opinion is where a political group emphasises and screams to differentiate citizens based on race.

Xenophobia is driven by base emotions. It is powered irrational fear; "You are different, therefore, you are to be feared."

This allows a political group to win arguments and support without any effort in thought, articulation or research. 

Just whip up a mob and the tsunami of fear turns into rabid violence - job done.

With this tactic (I will not dignify this approach by calling it a strategy), the political group gets away with financial abuse, embezzlement, incompetence and all sorts of abuse of power.

James Bryce wrote about the indolence of citizens. Nobody wants to think. It hurts the head.

Nobody wants to study hard. It hurts the head.

In any case, the system adjusts the academic scores so that as many students as possible gets a pass and, even distinctions.

The only problem with this tactic is that the fools among the citizens who support this political group will get nothing meaningful, be it financial benefit or intellectual skill.

It is George Orwell's porcine metaphor and allegory run riot. And, if you have a sense of humour, you will realise that even the preceding sentence may not go down well with citizens who profess certain religious leanings...that is if they even read this blog and, ....if they even understand the language that this is written in, and...if they get the nuance.

Incriminating crime

If the people in charge of national security and economic planning were to trouble themselves to think harder and clearer on the ecosystem of Malaysia based on putting Malaysia's national interest first and foremost they ought to come to a realisation that they have much to expiate.

First, on what basis was the decision made to open the spigots to allow cheap foreign labour to enter Malaysia?

If it was due to intense lobbying by the property development and plantation sectors, then, the basis may be wrong if the decision makers failed to take into account the socio-economic impact of the usage of cheap foreign labour.

Did anyone bother to prepare econometric models to consider the displacement effect that cheap foreign labour will have on Malaysia's own indigent labour class? Where would this class of Malaysians go when they are displaced by cheap foreign labour? Where will they get their income? With low skills, poor education it is not a stretch to forecast that these Malaysians will be pushed to the fringes of society.

And, "fringes of society" clearly means crime, lawlessness and unsavoury activities.

Second, what is so wrong about raising the income levels for the labouring class?

Yes, the cost of everything will rise commensurately. What is the big deal with that if it lifts up the entire substratum of Malaysian society?

Plantation sector

In the case of the plantation sector, no access to cheap foreign labour would have resulted in higher wages for Malaysian labour AND it would have forced 2 things to happen-

1. Increase the incentive and urgency to innovate the plantation sector. This may manifest itself in the form of more intense downstream activities and discovery of new applications for rubber and palm oil products.
2. Increase the incentive and urgency for Malaysian companies to search for cheaper and lower cost countries to establish plantation activities.

Instead, due to molly-coddling by the Malaysian government, the silly and myopic arguments used by Malaysian plantation owners resulted in an inefficient plantation sector that is now at risk of losing Malaysia's edge to countries like Indonesia and those in the African and South American continents.

The sad reality is that Malaysia was bound to lose its dominance in the plantation sector anyway. But Malaysian companies should still be the dominant players in the rubber and palm oil sectors IF they now work at double-speed to conquer the emerging upstream plantation jurisdictions.

Don't just be the kings of our own backyard! That should be the message that the Malaysian policy makers should be exhorting the plantation sector to do.

Property development sector

As for the property developers the self-same critique also holds true.

No access to cheap foreign labour would have resulted in higher wages for Malaysian labour AND it would have forced 2 things to happen-

1. Cost of construction would have gone up. Prices of properties would have gone up. The property market would have been cooler and less speculative. Property developers would have faced profit margin compression but, still be profitable.
2. Increase the incentive and urgency to innovate the property and construction sector by using different construction materials and using better equipment.

Better paid Malaysian workers

Better paid Malaysian labour with a commensurate higher cost of living has the salutary effect of improving the quality of life in Malaysia. 

Malaysian labourers will have a chance to get their children a better education. This type of mindfulness, about the need to have a better education, usually comes with having better income.

With less cheap foreign labour and a Malaysian labour class that has better wages we will experience a higher cost of living. This higher cost will be tempered by higher income all around for Malaysians. The resulting effect is less crime.

Another resulting effect is that Malaysia and its citizens will have to greater incentive to move up the value chain of skills.

My visceral and indelible impression of reasonably high wage income in the labour class was a mature age classmate in Melbourne Australia in the 1980s. Robert D. was already in his late 30s when he enrolled in Law School. He chose to be a bricklayer for some years. It was a decent enough job, income-wise. Constructions sites in Australia have always been safe and clean environments, unlike the cesspools and dengue-breeding places we have here.

My other impression is that of a Greek Australian family who still manifested a strong Greek-accented Ozzified English when spoken in a reasonable posh suburb in Melbourne. The guy owned just one heavy duty lorry which he drove himself. His neighbours were bank managers and white-collar management level. Is that cool, or, what?

I'm not saying that we have to be at that kind of stratospheric level. I'm just saying that for the benefit of all Malaysians, super-rich, rich, well-off, breakeven and poor, our economic system must put Malaysians first.

Not just the rich. Not just the owners of plantation and property development sectors.

Just let the common wealth of our country percolate down more than it does now.

This can be done, in direct fashion, via enlightened economic and labour management policies.

There are a trillion reasons as to why the scenario that I have sketched will be argued to be impractical, idealistic and, even Utopian.

But, as with all right-thinking Malaysians, I wish for a better society and a better country for my family, my friends and my colleagues.

Is this challenge too much to ask or, to expect?

Remembering JFK

Does everyone love a dead hero? I'm not sure about that. In any case, JFK was never a hero to me.

So, why do I habitually make reference to him? Why do I have close to 100 books on him, his parents and his siblings?

It was in 1979 that I "discovered" JFK. It was through his Inaugural Address, in fact.

I was struggling to prepare for the district English-language school debates. My team and I had reached the district finals. The topic was a dramatic oxymoronic phrase, "War is necessary for peace". We were the proposers.

I chanced upon a selection of speeches by U.S. Presidents. One of my sisters must have bought it from the Logos, a ship that acted as a floating book store in the 1970s, when it berthed at Port Klang.

One would imagine that there might have been more apposite phrases in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in the way, he, with a spartan 44 words, could consecrate the dead soldiers of the Union after a bloody battle. It would have seemed more inspirational and elegant when used in support the the proposition that I had to make in the district debating finals.

Somehow, Kennedy's Inaugural Address lent a stronger resonance to me. And, I used it.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

We won the district finals and I was adjudged to be the best debater in the final round. I owed that accolade, in part, to the soaring words of Kennedy and Ted Sorensen.

As I write this blog entry, many parts of the world are preparing to honour JFK on 50th anniversary of the day he died.

There are a myriad of reasons as to why JFK and the Kennedy mystique continues to enthral people. Some are drawn to his martyrdom (not caring what he stood for or, whether he stood for anything in particular). Others are drawn to the 1960s-ness of his epoch. He was cooler than Don Draper; hell, he may have been one of the inspirations for the Don Draper character. He, with James Dean, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Marilyn Monroe and many others represented the iconic deaths that so horrified and transmogrified our memories of the 1960s.

My fascination with JFK is about his love and respect of the written word, the spoken word and History. 

It is also about his ability to, in turn, fascinate and inspire so many biographers to write about him.

In the American presidential pantheon JFK achieved so little in legislative affairs and governance when compared with presidents such as James Monroe, Woodrow Wilson, Ted Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt. Yet, his memory endures and thrives.

This is the stuff that is fodder for academics and biographers.

I just wanted to tip my hat, on this day, to someone who helped inspire my love and respect of the written word, the spoken word and History. 

That is all.

DBKL and the proposed rates hike

Like every other property owner in the great metropolis of Kuala Lumpur I, too, have received the dreaded Notice for revision of the Valuation List for the City of Kuala Lumpur.

I believe it is very important to write the objection and send it to DBKL. You should not leave it to the politicians and media to do the work for you.

The reason is that underlying this rate hike exercise is a formal legal and bureaucratic procedure that is likely to be used as a basis for selective exemptions or partial exemptions from the general rate hike, i.e. where a property owner has stated specific and relevant reasons in the objection.

Please note that to ensure that you get a fair review, the objection in writing/bantahan secara bertulis must be underpinned by reasons that fall within any of the 5 categories below.

Local Government Act 1976
Objections
142. (1) Any person aggrieved on any of the following grounds:

(a) that any holding for which he is rateable is valued beyond
      its rateable value;
(b) that any holding valued is not rateable;
(c) that any person who, or any holding which, ought to be
      included in the Valuation List is omitted therefrom;
(d) that any holding is valued below its rateable value; or
(e) that any holding or holdings which have been jointly or
     separately valued ought to be valued otherwise,

may make objection in writing to the local authority at any time
not less than fourteen days before the time fixed for the revision
of the Valuation List.

Since neither the Datuk Bandar nor any of his cohorts hold an elective office, property owners do not have much hope against the juggernaut of DBKL.

Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Seri Ahmad Phesal Talib has confirmed that from January 1, property owners in the city will have to fork out higher property assessment fees.

In this era of feudalism in Malaysia, all we can do is to prostrate ourselves to the gods of government and appeal for benevolence and beseech these gods to rein in on their abuse of power and corrupt excesses...all in the name of controlling costs so that DBKL will not see the need for any further rate increases in the near future.
__________________________________________

Here is fz.com's highly relevant analysis and debunking of the purported reasons for the rate hike.

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 21): So is Kuala Lumpur City Hall’s (DBKL) proposed hike in assessment rates justified?

Fz.com has taken a closer look at DBKL’s accounts from the last five years and find that the city is loaded with reserves, tax income, federal and private funding.

Skimming through past reports, speeches and accounts, it seems that the current proposal to raise assessment by up to 300% is unjustified, as the authority has enough avenues of income generation.

DBKL’s main source of income is assessment which typically makes up 40-60% of its total income. And since 2009, DBKL’s tax revenue steadily increased by 2-4%.

However, last year, when Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Ahmad Phesal Talib, announced the city’s 2013 budget, he said income from assessment alone was expected to double to RM880.5mil -- an 8.6% jump from 2012. 

In his speech, he said the hike was due to many upcoming property developments, which would translate into more assessment.

Hence it does not gel with the recent proposed tax hike of 100-300% which sent shock waves to KL folks as rates have remained the same for the past 21 years.

The most damning evidence that DBKL is merely taking the easy way out by taxing ratepayers, come from Ahmad Phesal himself. His 2013 budget speech boasts of its prosperous accounts in 2012:

“Even though there is no increase in assessment tax and rates have not been revised since 1992, tax revenue continues to rise because the number of properties that are taxable has increased as well. Rapid property development has also improved revenue from development charges. Rate hikes of those charges and the change of calculation method had also increase tax revenue.

“On top of that, DBKL managed to recover assessment arrears, raking in another RM100mil into their accounts,” he said.

From 2009 to 2013, DBKL has received plenty of funding federal government to carry out projects under the 9th and 10th Malaysia Plan and also from private sector and sometimes from Petronas.

DBKL hardly ever spends every single cent allocated to the financial year. For instance, development cost in 2011 was budgeted at RM1.017mil, but only RM789.6bil were spent. Hence RM227.4mil was carried forward to the next year.

By merely looking at general accounts of DBKL, cost cutting effort by former mayor Tan Sri Ahmad Fuad Ismail has made the city rather well-off.

In 2010, Ahmad Fuad, who was mayor from 2008 to July 2012, had indicated that while assessment that had not been revised for so long, he would not push for a rate hike. 

In fact, due to DBKL’s financial standing, it could even afford to reduce assessment tax by 2% for service apartments and apartments in commercial buildings, sustaining a shortfall of RM4 mil in revenue. 

To maintain the city’s revenue, there were special task forces established to collect arrears, amounting to RM4 million especially by low cost apartment dwellers.

Read more: http://www.fz.com/content/mayor-contradicts-own-need-assessment#ixzz2lGbmW0fW

Car killing idiots

On the matter of the mooted policy of the Road Transport Department (RTD) to make it mandatory to scrap cars that exceed 12 years, I wish to tell whoever came up with this idea to take a flying leap to Hell.

I hesitate to make that wish come true because I am prepared to make a small assumption that the people who regulate things in Malaysia cannot be so stupid and corrupted by self-interest that they will intentionally make the rakyat suffer unnecessarily...but, I may be wrong to make that assumption.

Confession. 

I have 2 cars that are over 12 years old. I send both cars to my regular workshop twice a year. Each time, the invoiced amount for work done runs into a few thousand Ringgit. The cars, needless to say, are in top condition with original parts or OEM parts.

Why should I scrap those cars?

The RTD and the people who make policy must use their brains more.

What is so wrong with having a biennial Roadworthiness Test for private motor vehicles that exceed 12 years of age?

What is the rationale for a Communist-Imperial style of a policy to make mandatory for the scrapping of all motor vehicles over 12 years of age?

Is Malaysia run by idiots?

Can't these people just Google for examples used in other jurisdictions?

Or, are they waiting for a junket trip overseas, lawatan sambil belajar?

Idiots!
__________________

Postscript: The Deputy Minister has come out with a rectal-fication statement.

GST and a Robin Hood/Sheriff of Nottingham Government

After much vacillation and hesitation, the government finally fixed a date for the implementation of the GST. And, it had to be April Fools Day in 2015.

Be that as it may, I see the GST as a necessary move. It is inevitable. I'll tell why it is inevitable.

Our country has a lot of cheap labour. Most of us fail, refuse or ignore the necessity to acquire higher value skills. So, the average working citizen does not pay any tax.

Why many Malaysians fail, refuse or ignore the need to acquire higher value skills should be the subject matter of serious study (pun intended).

Is it race? Is it culture? Is it the social environment? Is it religion? Is it the hot tropical weather? Is it the abundance of food?

Or, is it plain indolence (which emphasises our slothlike approach to pretty much everything)?

Why aren't every young Malaysians scrambling to get a better and higher education so as to go higher up the value chain?

Why has the education system spat out and churned out only low-skilled citizens who love to complain and do no work of any value?

And so, here we are.

We have a bunch of politicians in government who are handing out freebies like there is no tomorrow. These guys need to collect more tax money so that they can give out more money (and, keep a lot too).

It does sound like the Malaysian government has acquired a Robin Hood complexion, does it not? 

At the same time, it does seem like the Malaysian government maintains its Sheriff of Nottingham demeanour of collecting tax, does it not?

This is political and leadership schizophrenia.

Yes, this posting meanders like the Klang River. In so doing, it mimics the political and governance landscape.

Things that matter

Life would be so much simpler if there wasn't so much obsession with spiritual matters.

I come from a polytheistic background. I found that from this milieu there is an earnest desire to harmonise. 

Growing up, things were always peachy with my siblings. We could play and banter to no end.

Then, like a bolt out of the blue, my siblings started to embrace monotheism.

That was my childhood's end.

They started to become preachy. They began to invoke the name of their one god for almost anything. It was annoying. It was boring. It ... broke the bond.

I became testy whenever they invoked the name of their god for the most inane things. I became irritable when they started to weave their new-found beliefs into things that I liked.

It became suffocating to be with my siblings. 

And, so....we drifted apart.

Monotheists seem to crave for market share.

Polytheists just want some peace and quiet to enjoy the bounties that Nature has endowed.

So, you can imagine how excitable my monotheistic siblings have become in recent years.

And, all this while, polytheistic me just enjoy burning the incense and lighting the lamp to honour the various deities and my ancestors without any rancour or fuss.

In most polytheistic cultures, one's belief is highly personal.

There is no imposition on others to comply.

If only the monotheists can just sheath their swords of righteousness and just embrace their beliefs privately.

The world would be tranquil, serene and serendipitous.

Civility is not a sign of weakness

I have been self-indulgent in pursuing my work and personal matters. These past months of have been a serendipitous in the main with the odd spikes of exigencies which require urgent attention. By and large I have been in cruise mode. I have been and, still am, in a happy mode.

I read a piece of fiction in my college years where the author had a narrative about the necessity of maintaining a degree of tension, some measure of tautness in one's emotional outlook on things, in order to produce excellent work, be it in the arts or any vocation. In short, one needs a degree of unhappiness to keep up the good work!

That has always struck me as being a bleak assessment of things; don't you think?

But, it is, sadly, true.

There have been a widely held perspective that Nobel Prizes awarded in the sciences have tended been in honour of work done by the recipients when they were below 35 years of age. 

This demographic perspective is consistent with my own experience.

Was it not Confucius who said, thus-

“The Master says: At 15, I set my heart on learning. At 30 I know where I stand (my character has been formed). At 40, I have no more doubts, at 50, I know the will of Heaven, at 60 my ears are attuned (i.e. my moral sense is well-developed), at 70, I follow my heart’s desire without crossing the line (without breaking moral principles).” 

So, if I may hazard an observation, it would be that if one experiences a measure of happiness and contentment, one's creative tension is commensurately reduced; a happy and contented person has less desire to push the envelope, so to speak.

Is this a bad thing?

I think not.

My recent experience in engaging people everywhere, while at work, while shopping, while anywhere, has proven that my happier persona has percolated and transferred some degree of happiness to people I have contact with.

Is this a bad thing?

I think not.

The salutary effect of my present emotional state is that when I skim read all the things relating to recent Malaysian political matters I do not experience any strong emotions. I just see all the goings on as a sick game of politics.

My hope is that the players and their sycophantic followers know that it is what it is, a mere game.

My concern is that the game may be taken too seriously with dire consequences.

I leave you with one of my favourite phrases from JFK's Inaugural Address on January 20, 1961-

Civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.

Selamat Hari Raya

I would like to wish all my Muslim friends a warm and sincere -

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI
MAAF ZAHIR DAN BATIN

and to all Malaysians,

HAPPY HOLDIDAYS!

and, most importantly,

DRIVE SAFELY

Idiots at large: Just show Tanda Putera and The New Village

Just show Tanda Putera and The New Village already.

Malaysian politicians, the whole lot of you, are a bunch of idiots and opportunists. You keep insulting us, loyal Malaysian citizens, with your putrid thoughts. Enough already. Show us some respect.

Neither Shuhaimi Baba nor Wong Kew Lit deserves to be caught in this nonsense. These are creative Malaysians who know how to tell Malaysian stories in an attractive style of their own. 

Please stop this nonsense and keep your political penises sheathed...you guys are all too ugly.

Just leave us citizens alone and let us enjoy good quality Malaysian movies for goodness sake.

It's getting hot in here!

It is quite amazing, when you think about it, how buildings and structures in Malaysia since the 1980s are completely inadequate to deal with the hot rays of sunshine in our tropical climate.

This, it appears, has something to do with the advent of air-conditioning and, centralised air-conditioning.

It appears that the availability of air-conditioning has given architectural designers the licence to draw buildings in Malaysia that pays no regard whatsoever to the power of the Sun.

Whereas, the pre-1980s buildings had lots of ventilation holes, canopies, verandahs and five-foot ways, these appear to have been discarded in favour of buildings, whether commercial or residential, that sealed every possible natural airflow and faced any which way. 

It is as if air-conditioning allowed building designers in Malaysia to thumb their noses at Nature. This was possibly the architectural equivalent of the Flight of Icarus.

So, we are now consistently confronted by the strong heat of either the morning sun or, the afternoon sun and, often, both. What do we do? Why, we turn the air-conditioning to 16 degrees, of course. This brings the average room temperature to about 20 degrees. 

Quite nice...except for the pesky monthly bills from Tenaga Nasional...and those rooms that cannot really cool down when the Sun is beating down.

When Ken Yeang designed the Mesiniaga Building and won accolades and awards, I thought, it was the turning point where Malaysian buildings, commercial or residential, would show the world what contemporary design can do in tropical settings.

Image sourced from here.

It has not happened.

Instead, we were and, still are, exposed to the most ill-thought out building designs where no regard whatsoever is given to the heat from the parts of the building that faces the Sun.

Nor, are we given the right to enjoy the cool morning or, evening breeze.

We can only hope and pray that Malaysian architects will start to assert themselves to landowners and developers to emphasise the absolute common sense that is required to design Malaysian buildings that are properly tropicalised so that occupants can truly enjoy the beauty of the Malaysian tropical climate instead of cursing the heat.

That is not fair to Sun or the Wind an, it is certainly not fair to the occupants of the buildings.

An overhaul of the theory of consumer choice

Nobel economics prize winner Daniel McFadden is on to something really interesting about debunking some conventional ideas about how consumers behave and make choices. Read here. I'm not able to put my observations into writing right now. Read on ...

“SOVEREIGN in tastes, steely-eyed and point-on in perception of risk, and relentless in maximisation of happiness.” This was Daniel McFadden’s memorable summation, in 2006, of the idea of Everyman held by economists. That this description is unlike any real person was Mr McFadden’s point. The Nobel prizewinning economist at the University of California, Berkeley, wryly termed homo economicus “a rare species”.

In his latest paper* he outlines a “new science of pleasure”, in which he argues that economics should draw much more heavily on fields such as psychology, neuroscience and anthropology. He wants economists to accept that evidence from other disciplines does not just explain those bits of behaviour that do not fit the standard models.

Rather, what economists consider anomalous is the norm. Homo economicus, not his fallible counterpart, is the oddity. To take one example, the “people” in economic models have fixed preferences, which are taken as given.

Yet a large body of research from cognitive psychology shows that preferences are in fact rather fluid. People value mundane things much more highly when they think of them as somehow “their own”: they insist on a much higher price for a coffee cup they think of as theirs, for instance, than for an identical one that isn’t.

This “endowment effect” means that people hold on to shares well past the point where it makes sense to sell them. Cognitive scientists have also found that people dislike losing something much more than they like gaining the same amount. Such “loss aversion” can explain why people often pick insurance policies with lower deductible charges even when they are more expensive. At the moment of an accident a deductible feels like a loss, whereas all those premium payments are part of the status quo. 

Another area where orthodox economics finds itself at sea is the role of memory and experience in determining choices. Recollection of a painful or pleasurable experience is dominated by how people felt at the peak and the end of the episode.

In a 1996 experiment Donald Redelmeier and Daniel Kahneman, two psychologists, showed that deliberately adding a burst of pain at the end of a colonoscopy that was of lower intensity than the peak made patients think back on the experience more favourably.

Unlike homo economicus, real people are strongly influenced by such things as the order in which they see options and what happened right before they made a choice. Incorporating these findings into models of consumer behaviour should improve their power to predict everything from which loans people choose to which colleges they apply for.

 Trust is something economists already incorporate into their models. But trust turns out to be not just a function of history and interactions, as dismal scientists tend to think, but also a product of brain chemistry. Pumping people with oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone”, has been found to make them much more generous in games where they have to decide how much of their money to entrust to another person who has no real incentive to return any of it.

Sovereign, indeed. Much of this may be alien to modern-day economists, but it is in line with the conception that other disciplines have of human decision-making. Psychologists have long known that people’s choices and preferences are influenced by others.

Biologists have a much clearer understanding of altruism and kindness, whether to kin or strangers, than economists, who typically emphasise the dogged pursuit of self-interest. This way of thinking would also have been recognisable to their intellectual forefathers. Adam Smith wrote extensively about the central role of altruism and regard for others as motivators of human behaviour.

The idea of loss aversion would have made sense to Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism: he spoke of increased pleasure and reduced pain as two distinct sources of happiness. Mr McFadden believes that economists need to do things differently if they are truly to understand how people make decisions. Manipulating brain activity is one way of delving into where economic choices really come from.

Analysing the information people get through social networks would help them understand the role of influence and identity in decision-making. Such tools have implications for policy. Plenty of poor people in America are wary of programmes like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) because the idea of getting a handout from the government reinforces a sense of helplessness. Dignity is not something mainstream economics has much truck with.

But creating a sense of dignity turns out to be a powerful way of affecting decisions. One study by Crystal Hall, Jiaying Zhao and Eldar Shafir, a trio of psychologists, found that getting poor people in a soup kitchen to recall a time when they felt “successful and proud” made them almost twice as likely to accept leaflets that told them how to get an EITC refund than members of another group who were merely asked about the last meal they had eaten.

A nudge and a think

Taking the path Mr McFadden urges might also lead economists to reassess some articles of faith. Economists tend to think that more choice is good. Yet people with many options sometimes fail to make any choice at all: think of workers who prefer their employers to put them by “default” into pension plans at preset contribution rates.

Explicitly modelling the process of making a choice might prompt economists to take a more ambiguous view of an abundance of choices. It might also make them more sceptical of “revealed preference”, the idea that a person’s valuation of different options can be deduced from his actions. This is undoubtedly messier than standard economics. So is real life.

* “The New Science of Pleasure”, NBER Working Paper No. 18687, February 2013

BN as a single party

Merging BN components into a single party makes eminent sense. This is an idea whose time has come. I am glad that the idea is gaining traction with senior UMNO leaders and leaders of some BN components.

One of the significant outcomes of GE13 must be that UMNO is clearly the party with rural strength. In the urban centres, due to its race-based political matrix, the urban electoral seats were ceded to the Chinese-based BN components.

The race-based political narrative appears to maintain a faithful following in the rural areas.

But, in the urban centres and mixed race areas, race-based narrative was strongly rejected in GE13.

The statement that Muhiyiddin has just been reported to have made is a tacit nod on this fact and, an express encouragement to the process to transform BN into a single party.

Without this transformation it is very likely that BN will be a permanent a dead-duck in the urban centres.

To engage urban Malaysians, BN needs a more inclusive membership formula. 

And, direct membership will show the way for urban Malaysians to relate better to BN.

Italy's brain drain

It may be of interest to some to know that Italy has been experiencing a brain drain and, struggles to lure them back...

The Economist piece can be found here.

Why Italian graduates cannot wait to emigrate

ALESSANDRO WANDAEL is a photographer. His is a profession in which success should depend on talent alone. But not so in his native Italy. The photo credits in magazines show that photographers who have family or other close ties to editors are working regularly, he says. “Those who don't, aren't.” The 37-year-old Mr Wandael, a former architect, has lived abroad ever since graduating: first in Berlin; now in New York. Figures in this field are often outdated and vague. 

But Mr Wandael is far from alone. According to 2005 statistics published by the OECD, he is among some 300,000 highly educated Italians who have opted to leave a country that has become rich without dismantling a social framework in which access to jobs depends on family ties, political affiliations and raccomandazioni (string-pulling recommendations). 

Last month saw unexpectedly violent student protests in a number of cities against proposed reforms to the university system. Some commentators detected in this a symptom of the frustration the Italian way of doing things generates among the educated young. 

How serious is the problem? It “does not exist”, said a junior minister in 2002, claiming that only 150-300 graduates a year left the country for good. A minister in the current government privately acknowledges the phenomenon, but says that the only real cause for concern is the departure of scientific researchers. But neither of these contentions stands up. 

A 2004 study found that, of all Italian emigrants, the share of those with degrees quadrupled between 1990 and 1998. In 1999, according to a separate study, 4,000 graduates cancelled their Italian residency. And just 17% of Italian graduates in the United States, the most popular destination, are involved in research and development, according to the (American) National Science Foundation. The biggest chunk work as managers. 

Yet what distinguishes Italy from its peers is not the absolute number of its exiled graduates (in 2005 more left Britain, France and Germany than Italy), but that it has a net “brain drain” (see chart), something more typical of a developing economy. In other words, the number of educated Italians leaving the country exceeds the number of educated foreigners entering it. 

By contrast, many of Italy's developed-world counterparts are involved in “brain exchanges”: as British computer scientists disappear to Silicon Valley, Spanish medical researchers find work in Britain, for example. 

 Last year Silvio Berlusconi's government made the second attempt in nine years to lure back exiled academics, this time with tax breaks. But this misses the point, according to Sonia Morano-Foadi, a law lecturer at Oxford Brookes University who interviewed more than 50 émigré Italian scientists in 2006. Her subjects identified two main reasons for their decision to quit the homeland. One was Italy's scant investment in R&D (the lowest of the European Union's 15 pre-2004 members). The other, “the most important and difficult problem of academia in Italy”, was its “non-transparent recruitment system”. 

Boycotting nonsense

The new Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs has made a major misstep when he merely said that the federal government did not approve of the boycott of Chinese goods and services but proceeded to defend the right to boycott.

Sometimes you can be legally correct but wrong on the economics.

Usually it is not a big deal because everyone knows that political motivations are usually irrational exuberance.

But...when you are a Minister responsible for an economic portfolio as important as Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs you have to be a big picture person. 

You are running the entire Malaysian economy.

You cannot be pandering to petty politicking even if it is just a fortnight since your party won by a whisker. 

You have to check that tribal, petty, parochialism.

You are the Minister in the Malaysian Cabinet with a portfolio to manage Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs.

Malaysia holds itself out as an open economy. Malaysia measures itself by trade competitiveness. Malaysia aspires to obtain foreign direct investments.

For instance, how would the Minister reconcile his defence of racial boycotting to investors and businesses from mainland China or Taiwan? 

Would he say via an interpreter, "Sorry, this boycott of Chinese goods and services apply only to Malaysian citizens of Chinese ethnicity and descent. It definitely does not apply to you people because you are from mainland China/Taiwan".

How lame is that?

Do I need to remind everyone that Cabinet Ministers hold a federal portfolio? 

Do I also need to remind everyone that people cannot be fooled all the time?

You cannot have the Prime Minister himself, Husni, Mustapha, Idris Jala and Wahid running around telling all and sundry that the Economic Transformation Plan is still on foot when your fella in charge of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs cannot send the correct signals out as a Federal Minister and, he is still labouring under the misapprehension that the stupid General Elections is still on.

As I said before, GET TO WORK!

PPSMI is alive and reviving

Now that the dust is settling on GE13 it is good to see the green shoots of the movement to revive PPSMI. Wong Chun Wai of The Star is refloating the idea again and, a most welcome reinitiation it is. I hope that Datin Azimah and PAGE will resume their important task.

Read here.

Well done, Donald Lim!

Donald Lim is thinking along the correct direction for the future of the MCA...

The MCA may have to open its party membership to other races after its worst result in history in Election 2013 as it cannot just bank on the Chinese vote, says the party’s Selangor chief Datuk Donald Lim.

He said the Chinese component party under the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government should look at the bigger picture and take into account the reality of the urban-rural divide, rather than a racial one, as reflected by the election results.

Read the rest here.

Time for GST

With the distraction of electioneering over, it is time for the federal government to look into implementing the GST.

A consumption tax is somewhat overdue.

There will be a reduction in corporate and personal income tax. The extent of the reduction is not known as yet. A reduction to a top rate of 18% will be welcomed by everyone.

Idris Jala has floated the view that a 7% GST rate, consistent with the rate in Singapore, will raise a projected RM27 billion in revenues.

Can Malaysia afford to defer GST any longer?

I think not.

It is time for the federal government to exercise its political will.

Emasculation: BN as a coalition brand

To me, blogging has always been about putting wayward and happenstance thoughts out into the open.

If I have more serious thoughts, I would reduce them into academic papers and have them published as I have in certain academic and professional journals.

This entry is about wayward and happenstance thoughts.

The formation of the Alliance Party comprising UMNO, MCA and MIC was an astute strategy to address a fragmented market of voters in the 1950s and 1960s.

Equally so, the formation of the even larger Barisan Nasional coalition was, in many ways, a response to the needs and demands of an even more fragmented market of voters in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The new millennium was dramatic for the BN largely due to the formal retirement of Dr M. 

Dr M was the embodiment of and, may well be the last of the paternalistic political leaders Malaysia will ever see. In the immediate euphoria of the post-Mahathir era, BN's successor leadership reaped the benefits and outpouring of goodwill towards the BN brand. BN's landslide win in 2004 was comprehensive and cut across every conceivable section of the Malaysian electorate.

If ever there was an example of a collective high, 2004 was it for Malaysian politics. The stuffy air in an enclosed room was replaced by the fresh air of greater political freedom.

What happened then? 

There is enough good political analyses already published that accurately document and contain sound inferences about why that groundswell of goodwill toward BN in 2004 was lost in 2008. 

This entry is about GE 2013 from the narrow perspective of BN as a political brand and, more to the point, why only the main sub-brand of UMNO attracted its traditional loyal following while the other component sub-brands suffered badly.

Why did the voters not embrace the BN brand when presented with non-UMNO sub-brands?

There are many factors, of course. There is the factor of the urban voters. There is the issue of racial groupings. Perhaps, we can add the possibility of personality, religion, campaign messages and strategy and many other factors. This is fertile ground for much socio-politica analysis.

I choose to look at only one possible factor. Emasculation.

Yes. You got it right. Emasculation.

The loss of power and, for want of a better word, masculinity.

Castration. Cutting off the cojones. Weakening. Deprivation of vigour.

These words describe the non-UMNO components of the BN.

This, to my mind, was a major factor that explains why non-UMNO BN components fared badly.

In the mid-1990s, I was, like the rest of the world, enthralled by Tiger Woods and his amazing skills and his will to win. He wore the Nike brand.

Everyone wanted to be like Tiger. Hell, I wanted to be like Tiger. How do I get to feel like I can be like Tiger? 

I bought the brands that Tiger wore. I bought Nike.

And, what, you may ask, has this Tiger-fixation episode got to do with the failure of the non-UMNO BN components?

Those of us who are either of a certain vintage or, who are conscientious armchair students of Malaysian history, may recall the deep personal bonds of friendship between the leaders of UMNO, MCA and MIC in the 1950s and 1960s. They would hang out, spin yarns, gulp down brandy and enjoy jocular banter. It was a true fraternity of the political elite.

Voters felt that if there was any issue that needed to be resolved these leaders would do so in a congenial setting and discuss matters with civility.

There was still evidence of this in the 1970s.

It disappeared in the 1980s.

BN went from a partnership of friends and transformed into a large corporation of strangers.

There is a light theory that it didn't help matters that Dr M never played golf. So, one could never catch up with him for casual chit chats with him in various states of undress in the dressing room. He was only accessible in controlled settings. That may be just golfers' bias. But, then again...

Anyway, the point that I am hazarding is that the electorate is neither blind nor deaf nor dumb. 

It can see the glaring contrast between the power and the glory that UMNO's leaders embody and the emasculated parochialism, insularity and pettiness that successive non-UMNO BN leaders has embodied.

Juxtapose that with the constant joint appearances of the Pakatan Rakyat leaders from PKR, PAS and DAP and their distinctive combined party logos in the shirts worn by the Pakatan Rakyat leaders and  the flags flown.

The contrast in imagery was that leaders from the non-UMNO BN components needed to "make an appointment" to have access to power, while Pakatan Rakyat leaders could just look each other up without any formal arrangements.

This is what I mean about the emasculation chanelled by non-UMNO BN components.

The marketing message of Pakatan Rakyat was, even for neutrals, sublime, exciting and seductive.

Who doesn't want a multiracial leadership and national unity? Who doesn't want leaders with power or, at least, real access to power?

Who doesn't respond to positive vibes that channels Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" oratory?

In contrast, voters were entreated with non-UMNO BN components like the MCA leaders pleading with the electorate not to give them "an egg" (meaning "zero"). Worse still, voters were abused with  self-indulgent and poor karaoke singing and forced to take home DVDs of candidates singing.

All of us want leaders who can hold themselves as a prism through which we can identify the best things that we wish for ourselves, our children and our community. We want leaders who can mirror our desires and aspirations.

The UMNO-BN leaders were obviously able to channel all that.

The non-UMNO BN leaders were not able to. Instead, they channeled a sense of emasculation and self-indulgence. This is not something the electorate want to see or feel when it examines the slate of political candidates.

This, to my mind, is the challenge for BN as a coalition brand. I admit that it is a simplistic entry; superficial even. That is why it is only a blog post and, not an academic paper.

The challenge is at many, many levels. Each BN component needs an internal overhaul. 

Someone made an observation to me recently, that the MCA's party constitution is so skewed to favour the incumbents that there is almost no way for any maverick to move the delegates to challenge the incumbents. So, it becomes a cesspool where elite factions fight each other without allowing young leaders to enter.

In fairness, the same accusation can be hurled at the Pakatan Rakyat components.

So, the difference may be in the area of the attitude of the leaders. 

For some reason, the Pakatan Rakyat is able to attract bright and young political talent and fast-track them into the electoral fray.

In contrast, BN components appear to be hierarchical, bureaucratic, staid, slow, ponderous, troglodytic and unimaginative.

Is this just a perception? 

Judging from the harsh feedback from the electorate in GE13, BN components have got a lot of soul-searching and structural reconstruction to embark on.

Leaders like Saifuddin Abdullah may well have hit the nail on the head in renewing the call for direct memberships into BN.

Voters need to feel like they are voting for candidates who have real power.

BN leaders may say, what is the point of voting for Pakatan Rakyat candidates who are not in government? Where got power, like that?

But, they would be wrong.

A good wakil rakyat will get the job done or, be seen to try to get the job done. That, to the voter, may be good enough...for now; someone to lend an ear; someone to lend a shoulder to lean on; someone to cry out about your plight; someone to represent your frustration; someone who can stand up for you.

So, please get to work!

Are Malaysians disunited?

If you believe the politicians on either the side of the divide, especially on the BN-UMNO side, Malaysians are completely disunited. The Malays are divided, the bloody Chinese have all (90%) decided to huddle together in a Fu Manchu Oriental plot mode and the Indians have gone into disarray...and so on.

It's absolutely bollocks.

The truth of the matter is that it is the politicians who have always stirred this pot of shit.

Malaysians just want to live a happy and reasonably carefree life in a community that is crime-free, corruption-free and with manageable costs of living.

This requires a system that has Good Governance.

All the bullshit about unity or disunity or Malay unity or Chinese unity is all crap.

There is no problem with Malaysian unity.

Ironically, the talk of unity is feeding the sense of divisiveness. I suppose that is what certain parties want. It masks deeper issues within the political parties that did not do well in the elections.

I say to those who are going to the new Parliamentary session after GE13 that you better damn well give the rakyat Good Governance and allow us to live a happy and reasonably carefree life in a community that is crime-free, corruption-free and with manageable costs of living.

If not we're giving you the boot and the sack the next time around.

Just shut up on the psywar already and tell us what are the bloody promises that you're going to keep and pray like hell that we don't remember the other bullshit promises you made.

Sakmongkol AK47

First of all, I wish to offer my congratulations to my friend and brother blogger Sakmongkol AK47 aka Dato' Mohd.Ariff Sabri bin Hj. Abdul Aziz for winning the Parliamentary seat of Raub. As you may know, Dato' Sak stood as a DAP candidate.

Anyone who knows Dato' Sak or, who has read his body of writings will know that Dato' Sak will not be a token Malay in the DAP. He will roar as a true Malaysian! Of that, I have no doubt.

The blogging community has sent yet another fraternal brother to the Malaysian Parliament.

Second, I understand that access to Dato' Sak's popular blog has been thwarted by unsavoury and cowardly third parties. You may wish to access his blog at http://sakmongkol.blogspot.ru/

You can also access Dato' Sak's blog by using .jp or .kr or any country domain listed in the world.

How to Listen When Someone Is Venting

I found this piece here so apposite to the political situation that Malaysia is in. The only thing is that the author, Mark Goulston did not end with the obvious advice on what next to do after dealing with the venting. Here's an extract-

As I have written before, when people are upset, it matters less what you tell them than what you enable them to tell you. After they get their feelings off their chest, that's when they can then have a constructive conversation with you. And not before.

I reproduce the piece in full below for your edification-

I still remember how it felt when, as a medical student, I drained my first abscess in a patient. We called the procedure "I & D" which stands for "Incision and Drainage" (I told you not to read this just before you eat).

When you do an I & D, you locate what is the most protruding and bulging part of the abscess, wipe it off with alcohol, than pierce it with a scalpel. At that point the pus comes out first, followed by any blood. After this procedure, you may put the person on an antibiotic. Over time, the wound heals from the inside out. If you don't drain the abscess first, and just start with the antibiotics, the undrained pus may prevent the wound from healing.

Saifuddin Abdullah

UMNO-BN is lucky to have a man like Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah in their ranks. Personally, I would vote for him any time. 

Saifuddin is the type of political leader who is completely in tune with the times. 

And, what are the times?

In these times political leaders have to engage the electorate. Meet their sentiments and their need to vent head on. Deal with their feelings honestly. Tell them how you feel also. Prove to them that you are bringing up the hard issues with your party's leadership. 

Show them what you have written to your party leadership to convey what your constituents feel.

And, if what you have done is still not enough to convince the electorate, persist.

People acknowledge and admire and respond to human valour and spirit.

One must not only be magnanimous in victory. Saifuddin has admirably demonstrated that one can be equally magnanimous in defeat. What a guy!

I am convinced that, at the rate he is responding to adversity, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah will be victorious in the 14th General Elections.

As for the likes of Teh Kim Poo (see earlier posts below), the less of his ilk in the MCA and Gerakan the better off BN will be.

That said, I find that many of the post-GE13 pronouncements by the MIC has been very admirable...except for that Saravanan fella who may get his comeuppance in due course at the rate he is going.