Only morons would say that Malaysia is a failed state or pengemis country

Jebat Must Die (JMD), a known Tun Mahathir blogger has just posted an article titled "Failed State, Pengemis dan Najib Razak". This is my reply to him.

Note: JMD says that article was not written by him but by a fan of him.  To me, it makes no difference. For him to post it in his blog means he agrees and takes responsibility for the contents. Once you post it as your blog entry, you cannot hide behind the cowardly excuse "But it wasn't me?" You post it, you take responsibility.

The desperation of Tun Mahathir's camp is reaching sky-high and have yet again resorted to lies and half-truths - this time way worse than before - thinking rakyat is stupid to believe them.

JMD listed a bunch of reasons to vainly and very weakly justify Tun Mahathir and Muhyiddin's insane claim that Malaysia is a failed state and negara Pengemis.

Firstly, it is important to note that Lim Kit Siang has said the very same thing for 40 years already - but yet, we have not become failed, bankrupt or beggars.

In fact, Lim Kit Siang is very fond of saying it and in his blog there are literally thousands of references to "bankrupt" and "failed state" over a time period of decades.

Not only has Malaysia not become a failed state but it is important to note that after 40 years of saying the same thing,, Uncle Lim himself is now a millionaire. his son is also a millionaire and his co-founder of DAP, the founding Chairman and current life-time adviser of DAP Chen Man Hin and his family have netted hundreds of millions of Ringgit in 2013 after selling their company Pontian Plantations to Felda for RM1.3 billion.

RM1.3 billion! Not bad for an opposition politician whacking this "racist" government and saying Malaysia is a failed state for 40 years straight huh?

Anyway, it looks like Tun Mahathir and Muhyiddin, in great desperation, has borrowed Uncle Lim Kit Siang's decades-old time-tested "failed state bankrupt" slogan.

I call them the Barisan Orang-Orang Tua Hampa Malaysia

Okay, let me get back to answering JMD's post and his many allegations and outright lies.

JMD LIE NUMBER ONE: 41% of rakyat gets BR1M hence this is evidence of pengemis people.

BR1M is NOT a poverty eradication programs (Malaysia have many other such programs) but for the 40% lower income groupM (Below 40% or B40) in Malaysia.

No matter how rich or poor the country is, there will always be a group of people who are the bottom 40% income group (and also top 40% group too). 

I do not believe you can call households earning RM4,000 per month as poor people or those in poverty. 

BR1M is a targeted assistance to the Rakyat who needs assistance the most and was put in place instead of inefficient blanket subsidies that benefit the rich more.

It has also been proven to be an effective policy tool to help reduce income inequality by transferring more of the country's wealth to the lower income group away from the higher income groups. Don't believe me? Read IMFhttp://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2014/012314.pdf 

Essentially, programs such as BR1M directly transfers wealth from the richer 60% (via reduction in subsidies, income tax and GST) to the lower 40% income houses (via BR1M) - thus the yearly income inequality in Malaysia has narrowed.

JMD LIE NUMBER TWO: GAJI TIDAK NAIK or NAIK HANYA CIPUT

In this lie, he gave a funny anecdotal example saying  "Contohnya gaji pekerja di Selangor hanya naik RM 20 sebulan pada tahun lepas."

I don't know how that can be considered proof though. Whose wage? what industry? what company?

Ridiculous. Please bro, be professional and cite statistics instead of nenek-moyang stories.

It is definitely a fact that salaries and income have indeed risen over the years. For example, in 2009 (the year when Najib first became PM) the average household income for Malaysia was RM4,025 per month increasing to RM5,000 in the year 2012 and as at 2014, it jumped to RM6,141 per month - not a bad effort for 6 years.

And even more significantly, the median household income moved from RM2,841 in 2009 to RM4585 per month in 2014 - a sign that income inequality has improved as the lowest income group have increased their monthly income faster than the top groups.

Official statistics show the Gini Coefficient has improved significantly from 0.441 to 0.401 - meaning a more equal Malaysia in 2014 than in 2009.

Source: DOS Household income report.

Source: DOS Household Income Report 2014

Why do I think it is possible that those numbers above are real?

For the simple fact that Malaysia over the past 6 years has enjoyed full employment, economic growth for many years and that policies such as BR1M and minimum wage make it impossible that income levels did not rise.


JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER THREE: 1% TOLLS, KTM KOMUTER, LRT, ERL RATES HAVE INCREASED 

Yes, they have increased in the Klang Valley alone. But let me tell you a story.

In the 1990s, the govt invested significantly in the public transport system for the Klang Valley.
Among these initiatives were the introduction of KTM Komuter in 1995, Star LRT in 1996, Putra LRT in 1998. The ERL to KLIA -in 2002 and KL Monorail in 2003, covering while the RapidKL bus service was introduced in 2004 to provide a comprehensive bus network in the Klang Valley.
Under Mahathir's govt, the LRT1, LRT2 and monoral companies ran up huge amount of debts and all failed - and eventually bailed out by Prasarana.
Currently, all these services, except for KTM and the ERL, are now owned by Prasarana and operated by RapidKL.
Despite these initiatives, the modal share of public transport in the Klang
Valley has declined from 20% in 1997 to 12% in 2008 due to the
population's growing affluence, easy access to vehicle financing and an
inefficient public transport system.
A 50% modal share of public transport is often seen as the benchmark of a sustainable city.
The number of cars in the Klang Valley is expected to reach 7 million by
2020, unless there is a marked shift towards public transport.
This will be a nightmare for traffic for sure - which will choke the growth of KL with congestion, pollution and wasted productivity if not addressed.
In 2009, PEMANDU targeted public transportation as a key urgent area to address in order to safe-guard the growth of the Klang Valley. SPAD was established in 2010.
Through increased investments and optimization of the current public transport infrastructure, the share of public transport has moved back up from 12% (2008) to 19.6% (2012), 20.8% (2013) and by the end of 2015, it will hit 25%.
In order reach the goal of 40% modal share by 2030, the govt has committed to invest at least RM72 billion (not counting new investment in buses, new monorail trains, new KTM trains) - many of which are already close to completion.
They are:
- LRT1 and LRT2 extension costs - RM7b (completing March 2016)
- LRT3 - RM9b (completing 2018)
- MRT1 cost - RM23b (completing July 2017)
- MRT2 cost - RM30b (completing 2022)
- BRT Sunway - RM0.634b (completed)
- BRT Federal -  RM1.5b (completing 2018)
- MRT3 (no cost estimate yet)
Knowing that the previous STAR, PUTRA and monorail failed badly and had to be bailed out, I do believe some increase in rates after 12 or 13 years is justified - if you look at the huge amount and cost of new infrastructure that is already so close to completion.
The last thing Malaysia wants is to bail-out the lines again.
These KTM Kommuter, LRT and monorail rates increase affect Klang Valley residents only but the main beneficiary of the additional revenue also benefits the Klang Valley residents only.
People outside of Klang Valley benefits nothing out of these RM72 billion investments for the Klang Valley - thus it is unfair for them to subsidize those in the Klang Valley.
FYI, RM72 billion is equivalent to RM13,680 BR1M for entire Malaysia.
Let's try to have a sustainable public transport system as the alternative is a highly-congested and heavily polluted Klang Valley that will not grow anymore.
What I really cannot understand are people asking for more public transport to be built and when announced LRT1+2 extensions, LRT3, MRT 1 and 2, all cheered and say well done kerajaan.
But when asked who pays for it, everybody quiet or get angry. lol

As for toll roads, you can blame your master.

Tun M is not very good in understanding concession agreements of any sorts - including toll agreements and not just the IPP ones.

This was finally revealed by Tun M in Jan 2007 when he said:

"Acknowledging that the government during his time may have erred in signing the toll concession agreements, Tun Mahathir urged the present government to be more careful before agreeing to toll hikes.

"This is one of thing that we need to correct. What you have is a cabinet which is not very knowledgeable all the time because it is not made up of experts but politicians (and) some politicians like myself can sometimes be stupid," he said when told by reporters that all the five tolled expressways were constructed during his 22-year tenure as prime minister.

Mahathir said the agreements were drafted by officers and submitted to the cabinet and usually the small prints are not there.

"The cabinet merely gave approvals in principle and never really studied the implications in some parts of the agreements."

Like what Tun M said above, he and his Cabinet members then were "stupid" (Tun M said himself, not me) and did not read the toll concession agreements properly before signing then.

Even more cheekily, Tun had then advised his predecessor governments to not to be like him and be more careful in signing future concession agreements.

However, Tun M did not comment how the present government should resolve the bad agreements he had signed before though as government cannot simply break agreements without paying compensation.

In any case, in 2011 Najib solved the biggest Toll headache by getting Khazanah (51%) and EPF (49%) to take over the biggest toll operator PLUS highway Bhd - thus renegotiating the toll rates and also making sure very dollar it makes goes back to either the govt or to the rakyat (via EPF) instead of crony companies previously.

And Najib will avoid this mistake of Mahathir by making sure the 2,200km Pan Borneo Highway he is building will be completely toll-free.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER THREE:  Subsidi beras murah untuk orang Miskin di hapuskan terus.

As for the ST15 rice subsidy scheme, The 2013 AG report clearly shows there are issues. In in March 2015, the PAC itself which includes Pakatan members has asked to stop this program.

Also, it was found out that a lot of the consumers of this rice were foreign workers and our subsidy money were going directly to them instead of to Malaysians.

This problematic scheme is being replaced with another scheme - it is not abolished. Read here for more details:


JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER FOUR: Subsidi tepung dihapuskan, secara sembunyi tanpa dihebahkan kepada rakyat.
This was due to certain weaknesses and leakages and everyone including the NGOs were asking government to stop this program as it was being misused.

Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia (PPIM) mendesak kementerian pengguna menghapuskan subsidi tepung gandum kegunaan am dalam paket 25 kilogram.
Seorang pegawai PPIM Mohd Mustaffa Hamzah berkata subsidi berkenaan tidak memberi manfaat kepada pengguna tetapi hanya memberi keuntungan yang melampau kepada pengusaha dan pengimpot yang memonopoli industri tepung.
Subsidi itu juga tidak relevan dan membebankan kerajaan yang perlu menanggung subsidi berjumlah puluhan juta ringgit setiap tahun, jelasnya.
Sedangkan pengimport dan pengusaha tepung berkenaan tetap menjual bahan kawalan itu mengikut harga pasaran, katanya.
"Kos pemberian subsidi kepada poengimpot merugikan kerajaan. Sebaliknya ia boleh dimanfaatkan dengan pemberian subsidi kepada sektor lain yang lebih menguntungkan pengguna," katanya kepada pemberita hari ini.

And again, not only were some of the flour companies pocketing the subsidies, it was discovered that many of the buyers of the subsidised flour were foreign workers again. In fact, we ended up subsidizing Singaporeans when these subsidized flour ended up being sold in Singapore!

In any case, worldwide wheat and flour prices have fallen greatly in the past year - thus such subsidies will no longer be needed.

You must remember that this subsidy was introduced when prices of wheat (of which flour is made of) was high but since the price have dropped, such subsidies are  no longer needed.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER FIVE:  Kadar elektrik akan naik bulan depan.

In reality, it was announced this week that electricity rates base price have not increased but the rebates announced in Mar 2015 have been reduced from 2.25sen/kWh to 1.52sen/kWh - resulting in minimal increases in prices from Jan 1.2016 onward but still lower than the Jan 1, 2014 price.
2) These ICPT rebates only apply to users of electricity who consume 300kWh or more per month as prices for electricity for users using 300kWh and below have not changed since 1997- these users constitute 70.6% of all households in Malaysia.
The ICPT fund which pays these rebates are the result of continuous savings from reduced fuel cost as well as savings form IPP costs resulting from fairer IPP contracts.
3) Users whose electricity use is RM20 and below will continue to get the full rebate - meaning a bill of ZERO from Jan 1, 2016 onwards. This subsidy has been continued despite certain opposition leaders claiming otherwise.
4) The reason why there is reduction of the rebate is that there was fuel cost increases which includes some recovery of gas prices and coal prices - but the main factor is the continued reduction in subsidies to the IPP and power plants.
The price charged by Petronas to the power plants have increased from RM13.70/MMBtu before the subsidy rationalization exercise started in 2014 to RM18.20/MMBtu as at Jan 1, 2016.
The actual market price for gas at the moment is about RM33.00/MMBtu.
Gas subsidies for the power plants are a legacy from the days of the unfair lop-sided power purchase agreements signed when Tun Mahathir started the IPPs in the early 1990s - which caused Petronas to lose tens of billions in revenue every year to the IPPs.
As these lop-sided agreements have mostly expired or renewed at much fairer rates in the first ever open tender for power plants called in the year 2012 after 1MDB entered the power-generation business.

Really, with the small decrease in rebate, the increases are quite small - and only affects 30% of the highest electricity consumers in Malaysia.

It is a fact that electricity prices next month in Jan 2016 will still be cheaper than in Jan 2015 and Jan 2014.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER SIX:   tidak hairanlah apabila statistik terkini menunjukkan peningkatan sebanyak 22% orang yang tidak berkerja di negara ini berbanding tahun lepas.Kadar pengaguran makin meningkat.

This is the worse lie from them - downright dastardly. What JMD have done is to compare the unemployment numbers from Sept 2015 with the numbers from Sept 2014 - completely ignoring the fact that unemployment numbers rises and falls.

 As you can see from the graph above, the number of unemployed people rises and falls all the time and there were more people unemployed at the end of 2013/beginning 2014.

In fact, the current unemployment rate as at Sept 2015 is 3.1% - below the 4% level that economists consider as full employment. There will always be people leaving their jobs before starting a new job or graduating from school and entering the job market - hence it is impossible to have completely zero unemployment persons.

But as you can see from the chart above, total employed people have increased over the same period - showing a growing economy and not a failed state.

JMD HALF-TRUTH NUMBER SEVEN: Kadar ringgit berbanding dollar jatuh teruk. Begitu juga berbanding Pound Sterling, Euro, dan Singapore Dollar. Ini memberi impak negatif terhadap import makanan seperti susu dan daging.

Firstly, out Ringgit has dropped about 30% over the past year and a half but do you really see prices of milk and meat increased 30%?

No. Of course not. It is just more scare-mongering and lies from JMD. And the reason is simple.

Due to the very factor of low global commodity prices affecting our Ringgit, the price of most commodities including Milk and meat have plummeted too.

In fact, global milk prices have slumped and excess milk is actually being poured away.

Global Beef prices too have dropped sharply over the past year too.

Okay, what about our currency? How shitty is that?

Mahathir actually started with USD1 to RM2.40 but ended up going as weak as USD1 to RM4.88 before he cowardly pegged it at USD3.80 by implementing tough capital controls. which scared of investors for many years until he resigned. 

This was one of the first major policy reversal that Pak Lah did when he removed the peg in 2005

And this is why Najib does not want to implement a currency peg - which is the easiest thing for Najib to do amidst loud criticism by Tun Mahathir about the recent currency weakness. 

How come Tun M does not know that Najib can do whatever Tun M did by cowardly pegging the currency? 

But Najib doesn't do that as it knows the long-term harm it does for the economy and bites the bullet the let the currency find its true level amidst weakening of other currencies too.

Most people have short memories and forgot that for many years, USD1 to RM3.70 was the normal range. 

We got used to the last 6 years when our currency appreciated from RM3.73 when Najib took over to as high as RM2.96 in May 2013. Of course Najib never got praises for this.

It is a fact that we are still trading within a +/- 20% range of the currency when Najib took over. See the graph below.

Our Ringgit has since appreciated somewhat from the low level of RM4.44 to USD4.19 close on last Friday.

And the main reason why our Ringgit have dropped was mainly because Malaysia is deemed as a major primary commodities net exporting country (rubber, timber, palm oil, oil and gas) and the world commodities prices have slumped since late 2014.

Malaysians have a very short-term view and very selective vision.

Here are the currency charts of similar primary commodities exporting countries vs our Ringgit.

The following past 5 years charts shows how much One Ringgit can buy of their foreign currency - which means the higher the chart is, the stronger our currency is against those countries.

These countries are Australia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and the favorite of many Pakatan leaders and supporters - Norway.

As you can see from the above charts, Malaysia has appreciated against those countries over the past 5 years - mainly because those countries depends more on primary commodities exports than Malaysia.

Over time when our transformation policies take place we become more industrialized and depend less on commodities, our currency will be less volatile and will eventually appreciate too.

Summary - why Malaysia has not become worse and actually became better in the 6 years since Najib became Prime Minsiter

Here are a bunch of chart - the Stock Market and the GDP chart.

Najib first 6 years GDP

For the year 2015 so far

And strong exports growth - for example, the Oct 2015 trade results which was just announced last Friday where we completely blew away market expectations to achieve our largest surplus in 4 years.

Malaysia reported a RM12.16 billion trade surplus in October of 2015, up ten fold from RM1.19 billion a year earlier - the largest trade surplus since October 2011, as exports surged.
Malaysia's exports in October surged 16.7% from a year earlier, increasing for a fifth consecutive month, supported by demand for electrical and electronic products, government data showed today.
October's exports had the highest year-on-year growth since April 2014, more than twice the 7.9% growth forecast by economists in a Reuters poll.

Here are the car sales table since 2009,

And here is the list of shopping centers in the Klang Valley - many of which opened in the past 6 years.

1 1 Utama Shopping Centre	45 M3 Mall Gombak
2 1Shamelin Shopping Mall	46 Main Place USJ21 Mall
3 AIM Point Plaza	47 Maju Home Concept
4 Alam Sentral (Shah Alam)	48 Melawati Mall
5 Alamanda Putrajaya	49 Mid Valley Megamall and The Gardens
6 Amcorp Mall	50 Mitsui Outlet Park KLIA
7 Ampang Park Mall	51 Nu Sentral
8 Anggerik Mall	52 Ole Ole Shopping Centre
9 Atria Shopping Ctr	53 One City @ USJ 25
10 Avenue K	54 One Mont Kiara
11 Bangsar Shopping Center	55 OUG Plaza
12 Bangsar Village Shopping Centre	56 Palm Mall
13 Berjaya Times Square	57 Paradigm Mall OUG
14 Brem Mall	58 Paradigm Mall PJ
15 Bukit Bintang Plaza	59 Pavilion
16 Bukit Raja Shopping Centre	60 Pearl Point Shopping Mall
17 Cascades Kota Damansara	61 Pertama Complex
18 Cheras Leisure Mall	62 PKNS Komplex Shah Alam
19 Cheras Sentral Mall (previously Plaza Phoenix	63 Plaza Damas
20 CITTA Mall	64 Plaza Masalam Shah Alam
21 Digital Mall	65 Publika Shopping Gallery
22 DPULZE Shopping Centre	66 Pudu Plaza
23 Empire Shopping Gallery,	67 QUILL CITY MALL
24 Encorp Strand Mall	68 S*PARK (Plaza Salak Park) 3.8
25 Endah Parade	69 SACC Mall Shah Alam
26 F&N Point (pretty much empty)	70 Selayang Star City
27 Fahrenheit88	71 Setia City Mall
28 Galaxy Ampang Shopping Centre	72 Shah Alam Mall
29 Gamuda Walk Kota kemuning	73 Sogo Shopping Center
30 gateway@klia2	74 South City Plaza
31 GM Klang Wholesale City	75 Space U8
32 Great Eastern Mall Ampang	76 SS2 Mall
33 IKEA Cheras	77 Star Avenue
34 IOI Puchong	78 Star Hill
35 IOI PutraJaya	79 Subang Parade
36 IPC Shopping Centre	80 Summit USJ
37 Jaya One	81 Sungei Wang Plaza
38 Jaya Shopping Centre	82 Sunway Putra Mall
39 KL Festival City Mall	83 Sunway Pyramid
40 Klang Sentral	84 Suria KLCC
41 KWC Kenanga Wholesale City	85 The Curve and eCurve
42 Lion Klang Parade Bhd	86 The Mines
43 Low Yat Plaza	87 Viva Shopping Mall Pudu
44 M Square Puchong	88 Wangsa Walk Mall

And the above is not counting all those numerous Giant, Aeon, Tesco, Segi fresh, Mydin stand-alone complexes - of which there are many in the Klang Valley.

And not only that, these are the upcoming shopping malls due to open within the next one to two years.

1 Bangsar Trade Centre	21 Pingat Bazaar
2 Bukit Jalil City Mall (Proposed/Future)	22 Pinnacle Retail (Empire State Of Art) , Seksyen 52 PJ (On-Going)
3 CentralPlaza@i-City (i-City Mall) (2016)	23 PJ Sentral Garden City Retail (On-Going)
4 Centrus Cyberjaya Shopping Mall (On-Going)	24 Plaza Rakyat (Renovated Soon/Next Year)
5 Da: Mén USJ	25 Roppongi Cyberjaya
6 Damansara Sentral Retail Centre (Future)	26 Sky Park Cyberjaya (On-Going)
7 Datum Jelatek (2017)	27 Subang Jaya City Centre (Proposed)
8 Empire City	28 Sunway Geo (2016)
9 EVOLVE Concept Mall	29 Sunway Nexis
10 F&N City Shopper's Mall PJ (Future)	30 Sunway Nexis Phase 1/Phase 2 (2014/2015)
11 Four Seasons Place Kuala Lumpur	31 Sunway Velocity
12 Icon City PJ (2017)	32 The Altium Retail, Damansara Perdana (Proposed/Future)
13 KL Eco City (2016)	33 The Robertson KL (On-Going)
14 KL Gateway (On-Going)	34 The School @ Jaya One Enrichment Mall [Mall for Kids] (Q3 2013)
15 KL Metropolis (Future)	35 The Starling @ Damansara Uptown/Damansara Uptown Mall (2015/2016)
16 MCT Mall @ One City (Future)	36 Tropicana Avenue Retail (2015)
17 Nucleus Damansara, Mutiara Damansara (On-Going)	37 Tropicana Gardens (2016)
18 Pan'gaea Shopping Mall (2016)	38 Tropicana Metropark (On-Going)
19 Pantai Sentral Park Retail Mall (Future)	39 Tun Razak Exchange (Future)
20 Pavillion Damansara

Remember that we used to have only a few malls such as Ampang Park, Sungai Wang and Pertama complex, now there are literally more than a hundred in Klang Valley alone.

So, please tell me how Malaysia is failed state or pengemis country?

Don't tell me pengemis are the ones going to these shopping malls?

And why are they building so many of these malls?

Because the developers have done their homework and know that Malaysians have become increasing more prosperous and willing to spend their money.

PENGEMIS and FAILED STATE indeed. Only morons  and Tun M bloggers would say that Malaysia is a failed state or pengemis country



If you really want to know, in Najib's first 6 years in charge, his track record overshadows Tun Mahathir's track record, Have a read here, if you dare.