The danger of inflation and stagflation

Today I went to buy a can drink of sugarcane from my hospital's HospiMart. One can used to be RM1.50 but just today on 31st December 2009, it costs RM1.60.

Yes, a rise in just 10 cents. Although this amount may look tiny, it has bizarre implications. Imagine if we use ratio to compare. What used to cost RM15 will cost 6.67% more, which is RM16 and subsequently what used to be RM150 will cost RM160 and so on..

What does this mean?

While the price of an item which is cheap may seem insignificant, but the price of a more expensive item will see inflation. This indirectly affects the middle income class and if I may be bolder, it affects the upper class as well.

Why do I say that?

The rich has already reduce and minimize a lot of their spending. The De Beers mine in South Africa is already closed. This simply means the rich are not interested to shop anymore. When they don't shop, money doesn't get pumped into the economy circle. No money, no returns. No returns, no profits. This affects our predominantly worldwide capitalist system. This is not good.

The government must find ways to boost local income and local economy-cum-industries. Failing that, the people will be angry with their deteriorating livelihood. I suggest the government adopt the 1997-8 crisis policy measures and re-introduce MTEN (Majlis Tindakan Ekonomi Negara) or NEAC (National Economic Action Council) to safeguard our nation's interests in these trying times. I strongly urge the government to heed the advice of Mr Matthias Chang, former political secretary to former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

It would be great if Matthias is wrong. I too would be happy. But what happens if he is right?


Dr Melvin Chin.

The impact of the Global Financial Tsunami in Malaysia

Unprecedented Financial Scandal - A Whopping RM 8.4 Billion of Non-Performing Loans - By Matthias Chang (27/11/09)
By Matthias Chang
Thursday, 26 November 2009 19:11

Why has Bank Negara been keeping quiet all this while?



It is often said that the best time to announce bad news is just before the weekend or public holidays.

So it came as no surprise that CIMB Group Holdings Bhd (the country’s second largest financial group) decided to drop the bombshell that they have on their books a whopping RM 8.4 billion non-performing loans (NPLs) knowing that it will be a long weekend following tomorrow’s public holiday – Hari Raya Haji! How very clever.

But this scandal will not go away, that’s for sure!



This amount of NPL is historic and unprecedented in the Malaysian banking industry.

The New Straits Times reported that a special asset management vehicle will be set up to acquire the said NPLs – the Southeast Asia Special Asset Management Bhd which will be wholly owned by the group.

These NPLs represent 45,000 accounts which have been written down to RM 928 million net book value!

Wow!!!!!!!!

Why this announcement now?

These NPLs must have been in the bank’s balance sheet for quite some time. Recall that way back in early 2008, I had warned that Malaysian banks are in deep shits following the global financial tsunami, but the authorities, namely Bank Negara (Central Bank) and the Ministry of Finance denied that such was the state of health of our banks and declared that everything was under control and that NPLs were within tolerable limits.

It was gross misrepresentation. It was also irresponsible.

If CIMB is in such deep shits, expect other government controlled banks to be in a similar situation.

The decision of CIMB to park the NPLs in a special vehicle wholly owned by the group has not resolved the problem, as what this means is that the toxic waste has been transferred from the right pocket to the left pocket and by this sleight of hand, the bank is now deemed healthy!

If you believe this fairy tale, you might as well cease to be an investor and or trader in bank stocks!

But what is more frightening is that these NPLs’ net book value is a mere RM 928 million.

We can only draw one conclusion – these 45,000 accounts are not your ordinary loans to consumers (consumer banking) or small business loans (SME loans) because if it was so, there would be adequate securities in the form of landed properties (i.e. charges/mortgages) and or debentures.

I stand to be corrected, but these must be loans for “trading” either for the stock market or investments in debt instruments. Even if it is not and whatever may be the case, this huge black-hole is a scandal and the management must be brought to account for this sordid state of affairs. Heads must roll. CIMB is a GLC (government linked company) and therefore taxpayers’ monies are at stake.

The timing of this announcement, in the last quarter of 2009 is also significant. If as I had expected that the first quarter of 2010 leading to the 2nd quarter will be the start of the 2nd wave of the Global Financial Tsunami, then this tactical move by CIMB Bank is a pre-emptive move to cushion the inevitable fallout.

The Governor of Bank Negara must give a public explanation as to how she has allowed and or tolerated such a state of affairs and why no remedial actions were taken earlier. CIMB Group Holdings Bhd is the country’s second largest financial services provider and for this to happen at such a critical time is mind-boggling.

One cannot but conclude that whatever reforms and or so-called measures to ensure the continued good health of our banks are all talk, more talk and nothing else.

This issue must be debated in Parliament.

Bank Negara is the watch-dog of the banking industry. It is about time we have a watch-dog to oversee the watch-dog!

RED ALERT !

Red Alert: The Second Wave of The Financial Tsunami - The Wave Is Gathering Force and Is Most Likely to Hit the Global Economy Between the First and Second Quarter of 2010. Count On It! - By Matthias Chang (23/11/09)
By Matthias Chang
Sunday, 22 November 2009 21:12

Many of my friends who have been receiving my e-mail alerts over the last two years have lamented that in recent weeks I have not commented on the state of the global economy. I appreciate their anxiety but they forget that I am not a stock market analyst who is paid to write articles to lure investors back into the market. My website is free and I do not sell a financial newsletter so there is no need for me to churn out daily forecasts or analysis.

However, when the data is compelling and supports an inevitable trend, it is time for another review. This Red Alert is to enable visitors to my website to take appropriate actions to safeguard their wealth and welfare of their families in the coming months.

Since the last quarter of 2008, unrelenting currency warfare has been waged by the key global economies and while this competition thus far has been non-antagonistic, it will soon be antagonistic because the inherent differences are irreconcilable. The consequences to the global economy will be devastating and for the ordinary people, massive unemployment and social unrest are assured.

The policy-makers of these countries faced with the total collapse of the international financial architecture have concluded that the solution, the only solution is quantitative easing (i.e. massive injection of liquidity) to salvage the “too big to fail” banks and reflate their depressed economies. This is best reflected in Bernanke’s candid remark that, “the US government has a technology, called the printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost”.

This is the crux of the problem!



The Irreconcilable Differences

Some two decades ago, it was decided by the global financial elites that the framework for the global economy shall consist of:

1) A global derivative-based financial system, controlled by the US Federal Reserve Bank and its associate global banks in the developed countries.

2) The re-location from the West to the East in the production of goods, principally to China and India to “feed” the developed economies.


The entire system was built on a simple principle, that of a FED-controlled global reserve currency which will be the engine for growth for the global economy. It is essentially an imperialist economic principle.

Once we grasp this fundamental truth, Bernanke’s boast that the “US can produce as many US dollars as it wishes at no cost” takes on a different dimension.

I have talked to so many economists and when asked what is the crux of the present financial problem, they all respond in unison, “it is the global imbalances… the West consumes too much while the East saves too much and consumes not enough”. This is exemplified by the huge US trade deficits on the one part and China’s massive surpluses on the other.

Incredible wisdom and almost everyone echoes this mantra. The recent concluded APEC Summit was no different. This mantra was repeated as well as the call for freer trade between trading nations.

This is a grand hoax. All the current leaders on the world’s stage are corrupted to the rotten core and as such have no interest to call a spade a spade and expose the inherent contradictions within the existing financial system.

The call for a multi-polar world is meaningless when the entire global financial system is based on the unipolar US dollar reserve currency. This is the inherent contradiction within the present system and the problems associated with it cannot be resolved by another global reserve currency based on the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights as advocated by some countries. It was stillborn, the very moment it was conceived!

The leaders of China, Japan and the oil producing countries of the Middle East are all cursing and pissing about the current situation, but they don’t have the courage of their convictions to spell it out to their countrymen that they have been conned by the financial spin masters from the Fed acting on the instructions from Goldman Sachs.

Tell me which leader would dare admit that they have exchanged the nation’s wealth for toilet papers?

The toilet paper currency pantomime continues.

We have now reached a stalemate in the current currency war, not unlike the situation of the Cold War between the NATO pact countries and the Warsaw pact countries. Both sides were deterred by the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine of nuclear wars. The costs to both sides were horrendous and it was only when the Soviet Union could not continue with the pace and cost of maintaining a nuclear deterrent and was forced into bankruptcy that the balance tilted in favour of the NATO alliance.

But it was a pyrrhic victory for the US and it allies. What kept the ability of the US to maintain its military might and outspend the Soviet Union was the right to print toilet paper currency and the acceptance of the US dollar by her allies as the world’s reserve currency.

But why did the countries allied to the US during the Cold War accepted the status quo?

Simple! They were all conned into believing that without the protection of Big Brother and its military outreach, they would be swallowed up by the communist menace. They agreed to march to the tune of the US Pied-Piper.

The next big question – why did the so-called “liberated” former communist allies of the Soviet bloc jump on the bandwagon?

Simple! They all believed in the illusion that was fostered by the global banks, led by Goldman Sachs that trading and selling their goods and services for the toilet paper US reserve currency would ensure untold wealth and prosperity.

But the biggest game in town was the Asia gambit. Japan, after a decade of recession following the burst of her property bubble did not have the means and the capacity to bring the game to the next level as envisaged by the financial architects in Goldman Sachs.

And China was the biggest beneficiary. The senior management of Goldman Sachs brokered a secret pact with China’s leaders that in exchange for orchestrating the most massive injection of US dollar capital and wholesale re-location of manufacturing capacity in the history of the global economy, China would recycle their hard-earned US toilet paper reserve currency wealth into US treasuries and other US debt instruments.

This was the necessary condition precedent for the global financial casino to rise to the next level of play.

Why?

The New Game

The financial architects at Goldman Sachs had a master plan – to dominate the global financial system. The means to achieve this financial power was the Shadow Banking System, the lynchpin being the derivative market and the securitization of assets, real and synthetic. The stakes would be huge, in the hundreds of US$ trillions and the way to transform the market was through massive leverage at all levels of the financial game.

But there was an inherent weakness in the overall scheme – the threat of inflation, more precisely hyperinflation. Such huge amount of liquidity in the system would invariably trigger the depreciation of the reserve currency and the confidence in the system.

Hence the need for a system to keep in check price inflation and the illusion that the purchasing power of the toilet paper reserve currency could be maintained.

This is where China came in. Once China became the world’s factory, the problem would be resolved. When a suit which previously cost US$600 could be had for less than US$100, and a pair of shoes for less than US$5, the scam masterminds concluded that there would be no foreseeable threat to the largest casino operation in history.

China agreed to the exchange as it has over a billion mouths to feed and jobs for hundreds of millions needed to be secured, without which the system could not be maintained. But China was pragmatic enough to have two “economic systems” – a Yuan based domestic economy and a US$ based export economy, in the hope that the profits and benefits of the export economy would enable China to transform and establish a viable and dynamic domestic market which in time would replace the export dependent economy. It was a deal made with the devil, but there were no viable alternative options at the material time, more so after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Next Level of the Game

The next level of the game was reached when the toilet paper reserve currency literally went virtual – through the simple operation of a click of the mouse in the computers of the global banks.

The big boys at Goldman Sachs and other global banks were more than content to leave Las Vegas for the mafia and their miserable billions in turnover. The profits were considered dimes when compared to the hundreds of trillions generated by the virtual casino. It was a financial conquest beyond their wildest dreams. They even called themselves, “Master of the Universe”. Creating massive debts was the new game, and the big boys could even leverage more than 40 times capital! Asset values soared with so much liquidity chasing so few good assets.

However, the financial wizards failed to appreciate and or underestimate the amount of financial products that were needed to keep the game in play. They resorted to financial engineering – the securitization of assets. And when real assets were insufficient for securitization, synthetic assets were created. Soon enough, toxic waste was even considered as legitimate instruments for the game so long as it could be unloaded to greedy suckers with no recourse to the originators of these so-called investments.

For a time, it looked as if the financial wizards have solved the problem of how to feed the global casino monster.

Unfortunately, the music stopped and the bubble burst! And as they say the rest is history.

The Goldman Sach’s Remedy

When losses are in the US$ trillions and whatever assets / capital remaining are in the US$ billions, we have a huge problem – a financial black-hole.

The preferred remedy by the financial masterminds at Goldman Sachs was to create another hoax – that if the big global banks were to fail triggering a systemic collapse, there would be Armageddon. These “too big to fail” banks must be injected with massive amount of virtual monies to recapitalize and get rid of the toxic assets on their balance sheet. The major central banks in the developed countries in cahoots with Goldman Sachs sang the same tune. All sorts of schemes were conjured to legitimize this bailout.

In essence, what transpired was the mere transfer of monies from the left pocket to the right pocket, with the twist that the banks were in fact helping the Government to overcome the financial crisis.

The Fed and key central banks agreed to lend “virtual monies” to the “too big to fail” global banks at zero or near zero interest rate and these banks in turn would “deposit” these monies with the Fed and other central banks at agreed interest rates. These transactions are all mere book entries. Other “loans” from the Fed and central banks (again at zero or near zero interest rates) are used to purchase government debts, these debts being the stimulus monies needed to revive the real economy and create jobs for the growing unemployed. So in essence, these banks are given “free money” to lend to the government at prior agreed interest rates with no risks at all. It is a hoax!

These “monies” are not even the dollar bills, but mere book entries created out of thin air.

So when the Fed injects US$ trillions into the banking system, it merely credits the amount in the accounts of the “too big to fail” banks at the Fed.

When the system is applied to international trade, the same modus operandi is used to pay for the goods imported from China, Japan etc.

For the rest of the world, when buying goods denominated in US$, these countries must produce goods and services, sell them for dollars in order to purchase goods needed in their country. Simply put, they have to earn an income to purchase whatever goods and services needed. In contrast, all that the US needs to do is to create monies out of thin air and use them to pay for their imports!

The US can get away with this scam because it has the military muscle to compel and enforce this hoax. As stated earlier, this status quo was accepted especially during the Cold War and with some reluctance post the collapse of the Soviet Union, but with a proviso – that the US agrees to be the consumer of last resort. This arrangement provided some comfort because countries which have sold their goods to the US, can now use the dollars to buy goods from other countries as more than 80 per cent of world trade is denominated in dollars especially crude oil, the lifeline of the global economy.

But with the US in full bankruptcy and its citizens (the largest consumers in the world) being unable to borrow further monies to buy fancy goods from China, Japan and the rest of the world, the demand for dollar has evaporated. The dollar status as a reserve currency and its usefulness is being questioned more vocally.

The End Game

The present fallout can be summarized in simple terms:

Should a bankrupt (the US) be allowed to use money created out of thin air to pay for goods produced with the sweat and tears of hardworking citizens of exporting countries? Adding insult to injury, the same dollars are now purchasing a lot less than before. So what is the use of being paid in a currency that is losing rapidly its value?

On the other hand, the US is telling the whole world, especially the Chinese that if they are not happy with the status quo, there is nothing to stop them from selling to the other countries and accepting their currencies. But if they want to sell to the mighty USA, they must accept US toilet paper reserve currency and its right to create monies out of thin air!

This is the ultimate poker game and whosoever blinks first loses and will suffer irreparable financial consequences. But who has the winning hand?

The US does not have the winning hand. Neither has China the winning hand.

This state of affairs cannot continue for long, for whatever cards the US or China may be contemplating to throw at the table to gain strategic advantage, any short term gains will be pyrrhic, for it will not be able to address the underlying antagonistic contradictions.

When the survival of the system is dependent on the availability of credit (i.e. accumulating more debts) it is only a matter of time before both the debtor and creditor come to the inevitable conclusion that the debt will never be paid. And unless the creditor is willing to write off the debt, resorting to drastic means to collect the outstanding debt is inevitable.

It would be naïve to think that the US would quietly allow itself to be foreclosed! When we reach that stage, war will be inevitable. It will be the US-UK-Israel Axis against the rest of the world.

The Prelude to the End Game

The US economy will be spiraling out of control in the coming months and will reach critical point by the end of the 1st quarter 2010 and implode by the 2nd quarter.

The massive US$ trillions of dollars stimulus has failed to turn the economy around. The massive blood transfusion may have kept the patient alive, but there are numerous signs of multi-organ failure.

There will be another wave of foreclosures of residential and more importantly commercial properties by end December and early 2010. And the foreclosed properties in 2009 will lead to depressed prices once they come through the pipeline. Home and commercial property values will plunge. Banks’ balance sheets will turn ugly and whatever “record profits” in the last two quarters of 2009 will not cover the additional red ink.

Given the above situation, will the Fed continue to buy mortgage-backed securities to prop up the markets? The Fed has already spent trillions buying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages with no potential substitute buyer in sight. Therefore, the Fed’s balance sheet is as toxic as the “too big to fail” banks that it rescued.

In the circumstances, it makes no sense for anyone to assert that the worst is over and that the global economy is on the road to recovery.

And the surest sign that all is not well with the big banks is the recent speech by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley at Princeton, New Jersey when he said that the Fed would curtail the risk of future liquidity crisis by providing a “backstop” to solvent firms with sufficient collateral.

This warning and assurance deserves further consideration. Firstly, it is a contradiction to state that a solvent firm with sufficient collateral would in fact encounter a liquidity crisis to warrant the need for a fall back on the Fed. It is in fact an admission that banks are not sufficiently capitalized and when the second wave of the tsunami hits them again, confidence will be sorely lacking.

Dudley actually said that, “the central bank could commit to being the lender of last resort… [and this would reduce] the risk of panics sparked by uncertainty among lenders about what other creditors think”.

To put it bluntly what he is saying is that the Fed will endeavour to avoid the repeat of the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros and AIG. It is also an indication that the remaining big banks are in trouble.

It is interesting to note that a Bloomberg report in early November revealed that Citigroup Inc and JP Morgan Chase have been hoarding cash. The former has almost doubled its cash holdings to US$244.2 billion. In the case of the latter, the cash hoard amounted to US$453.6 billion. Yet, given this hoarding by the leading banks, the New York Federal Reserve Bank had to reassure the financial community that it is ready to inject massive liquidity to prop up the system.

It should come as no surprise that the value of the dollar is heading south.

When currencies are being debased, volatility in the stock market increases. But the gains are not worth the risks and if anyone is still in the market, they will be wiped out by the 1st quarter of 2010. The S&P may have shot up since the beginning of the year by over 25 per cent but it has been out-performed by gold. The gains have also lagged behind the official US inflation rate. It has in fact delivered a total return after inflation of approximately minus 25 per cent. When Meredith Whitney remarked that, “I don’t know what’s going on in the market right now, because it makes no sense to me”, it is time to get out of the market fast.

In a report to its clients, Sociétté Général warned that public debt would be massive in the next two years – 105 per cent of GDP in the UK, 125 per cent in the US and in Europe and 270 per cent in Japan. Global debt would reach US$45 trillion.

At some point in time, all these debts must be repaid. How will these debts be repaid?

If we go by what Bernanke has been preaching and practising, it means more toilet paper currency will be created to repay the debts.

As a result, debasement of currencies will continue and this will further aggravate existing tensions between the competing economies. And when creditors have enough of this toilet paper scam, expect violent reactions!

RED ALERT !

Red Alert: The Second Wave of The Financial Tsunami - The Wave Is Gathering Force and Is Most Likely to Hit the Global Economy Between the First and Second Quarter of 2010. Count On It! - By Matthias Chang (23/11/09)
By Matthias Chang
Sunday, 22 November 2009 21:12

Many of my friends who have been receiving my e-mail alerts over the last two years have lamented that in recent weeks I have not commented on the state of the global economy. I appreciate their anxiety but they forget that I am not a stock market analyst who is paid to write articles to lure investors back into the market. My website is free and I do not sell a financial newsletter so there is no need for me to churn out daily forecasts or analysis.

However, when the data is compelling and supports an inevitable trend, it is time for another review. This Red Alert is to enable visitors to my website to take appropriate actions to safeguard their wealth and welfare of their families in the coming months.

Since the last quarter of 2008, unrelenting currency warfare has been waged by the key global economies and while this competition thus far has been non-antagonistic, it will soon be antagonistic because the inherent differences are irreconcilable. The consequences to the global economy will be devastating and for the ordinary people, massive unemployment and social unrest are assured.

The policy-makers of these countries faced with the total collapse of the international financial architecture have concluded that the solution, the only solution is quantitative easing (i.e. massive injection of liquidity) to salvage the “too big to fail” banks and reflate their depressed economies. This is best reflected in Bernanke’s candid remark that, “the US government has a technology, called the printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost”.

This is the crux of the problem!



The Irreconcilable Differences

Some two decades ago, it was decided by the global financial elites that the framework for the global economy shall consist of:

1) A global derivative-based financial system, controlled by the US Federal Reserve Bank and its associate global banks in the developed countries.

2) The re-location from the West to the East in the production of goods, principally to China and India to “feed” the developed economies.


The entire system was built on a simple principle, that of a FED-controlled global reserve currency which will be the engine for growth for the global economy. It is essentially an imperialist economic principle.

Once we grasp this fundamental truth, Bernanke’s boast that the “US can produce as many US dollars as it wishes at no cost” takes on a different dimension.

I have talked to so many economists and when asked what is the crux of the present financial problem, they all respond in unison, “it is the global imbalances… the West consumes too much while the East saves too much and consumes not enough”. This is exemplified by the huge US trade deficits on the one part and China’s massive surpluses on the other.

Incredible wisdom and almost everyone echoes this mantra. The recent concluded APEC Summit was no different. This mantra was repeated as well as the call for freer trade between trading nations.

This is a grand hoax. All the current leaders on the world’s stage are corrupted to the rotten core and as such have no interest to call a spade a spade and expose the inherent contradictions within the existing financial system.

The call for a multi-polar world is meaningless when the entire global financial system is based on the unipolar US dollar reserve currency. This is the inherent contradiction within the present system and the problems associated with it cannot be resolved by another global reserve currency based on the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights as advocated by some countries. It was stillborn, the very moment it was conceived!

The leaders of China, Japan and the oil producing countries of the Middle East are all cursing and pissing about the current situation, but they don’t have the courage of their convictions to spell it out to their countrymen that they have been conned by the financial spin masters from the Fed acting on the instructions from Goldman Sachs.

Tell me which leader would dare admit that they have exchanged the nation’s wealth for toilet papers?

The toilet paper currency pantomime continues.

We have now reached a stalemate in the current currency war, not unlike the situation of the Cold War between the NATO pact countries and the Warsaw pact countries. Both sides were deterred by the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine of nuclear wars. The costs to both sides were horrendous and it was only when the Soviet Union could not continue with the pace and cost of maintaining a nuclear deterrent and was forced into bankruptcy that the balance tilted in favour of the NATO alliance.

But it was a pyrrhic victory for the US and it allies. What kept the ability of the US to maintain its military might and outspend the Soviet Union was the right to print toilet paper currency and the acceptance of the US dollar by her allies as the world’s reserve currency.

But why did the countries allied to the US during the Cold War accepted the status quo?

Simple! They were all conned into believing that without the protection of Big Brother and its military outreach, they would be swallowed up by the communist menace. They agreed to march to the tune of the US Pied-Piper.

The next big question – why did the so-called “liberated” former communist allies of the Soviet bloc jump on the bandwagon?

Simple! They all believed in the illusion that was fostered by the global banks, led by Goldman Sachs that trading and selling their goods and services for the toilet paper US reserve currency would ensure untold wealth and prosperity.

But the biggest game in town was the Asia gambit. Japan, after a decade of recession following the burst of her property bubble did not have the means and the capacity to bring the game to the next level as envisaged by the financial architects in Goldman Sachs.

And China was the biggest beneficiary. The senior management of Goldman Sachs brokered a secret pact with China’s leaders that in exchange for orchestrating the most massive injection of US dollar capital and wholesale re-location of manufacturing capacity in the history of the global economy, China would recycle their hard-earned US toilet paper reserve currency wealth into US treasuries and other US debt instruments.

This was the necessary condition precedent for the global financial casino to rise to the next level of play.

Why?

The New Game

The financial architects at Goldman Sachs had a master plan – to dominate the global financial system. The means to achieve this financial power was the Shadow Banking System, the lynchpin being the derivative market and the securitization of assets, real and synthetic. The stakes would be huge, in the hundreds of US$ trillions and the way to transform the market was through massive leverage at all levels of the financial game.

But there was an inherent weakness in the overall scheme – the threat of inflation, more precisely hyperinflation. Such huge amount of liquidity in the system would invariably trigger the depreciation of the reserve currency and the confidence in the system.

Hence the need for a system to keep in check price inflation and the illusion that the purchasing power of the toilet paper reserve currency could be maintained.

This is where China came in. Once China became the world’s factory, the problem would be resolved. When a suit which previously cost US$600 could be had for less than US$100, and a pair of shoes for less than US$5, the scam masterminds concluded that there would be no foreseeable threat to the largest casino operation in history.

China agreed to the exchange as it has over a billion mouths to feed and jobs for hundreds of millions needed to be secured, without which the system could not be maintained. But China was pragmatic enough to have two “economic systems” – a Yuan based domestic economy and a US$ based export economy, in the hope that the profits and benefits of the export economy would enable China to transform and establish a viable and dynamic domestic market which in time would replace the export dependent economy. It was a deal made with the devil, but there were no viable alternative options at the material time, more so after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Next Level of the Game

The next level of the game was reached when the toilet paper reserve currency literally went virtual – through the simple operation of a click of the mouse in the computers of the global banks.

The big boys at Goldman Sachs and other global banks were more than content to leave Las Vegas for the mafia and their miserable billions in turnover. The profits were considered dimes when compared to the hundreds of trillions generated by the virtual casino. It was a financial conquest beyond their wildest dreams. They even called themselves, “Master of the Universe”. Creating massive debts was the new game, and the big boys could even leverage more than 40 times capital! Asset values soared with so much liquidity chasing so few good assets.

However, the financial wizards failed to appreciate and or underestimate the amount of financial products that were needed to keep the game in play. They resorted to financial engineering – the securitization of assets. And when real assets were insufficient for securitization, synthetic assets were created. Soon enough, toxic waste was even considered as legitimate instruments for the game so long as it could be unloaded to greedy suckers with no recourse to the originators of these so-called investments.

For a time, it looked as if the financial wizards have solved the problem of how to feed the global casino monster.

Unfortunately, the music stopped and the bubble burst! And as they say the rest is history.

The Goldman Sach’s Remedy

When losses are in the US$ trillions and whatever assets / capital remaining are in the US$ billions, we have a huge problem – a financial black-hole.

The preferred remedy by the financial masterminds at Goldman Sachs was to create another hoax – that if the big global banks were to fail triggering a systemic collapse, there would be Armageddon. These “too big to fail” banks must be injected with massive amount of virtual monies to recapitalize and get rid of the toxic assets on their balance sheet. The major central banks in the developed countries in cahoots with Goldman Sachs sang the same tune. All sorts of schemes were conjured to legitimize this bailout.

In essence, what transpired was the mere transfer of monies from the left pocket to the right pocket, with the twist that the banks were in fact helping the Government to overcome the financial crisis.

The Fed and key central banks agreed to lend “virtual monies” to the “too big to fail” global banks at zero or near zero interest rate and these banks in turn would “deposit” these monies with the Fed and other central banks at agreed interest rates. These transactions are all mere book entries. Other “loans” from the Fed and central banks (again at zero or near zero interest rates) are used to purchase government debts, these debts being the stimulus monies needed to revive the real economy and create jobs for the growing unemployed. So in essence, these banks are given “free money” to lend to the government at prior agreed interest rates with no risks at all. It is a hoax!

These “monies” are not even the dollar bills, but mere book entries created out of thin air.

So when the Fed injects US$ trillions into the banking system, it merely credits the amount in the accounts of the “too big to fail” banks at the Fed.

When the system is applied to international trade, the same modus operandi is used to pay for the goods imported from China, Japan etc.

For the rest of the world, when buying goods denominated in US$, these countries must produce goods and services, sell them for dollars in order to purchase goods needed in their country. Simply put, they have to earn an income to purchase whatever goods and services needed. In contrast, all that the US needs to do is to create monies out of thin air and use them to pay for their imports!

The US can get away with this scam because it has the military muscle to compel and enforce this hoax. As stated earlier, this status quo was accepted especially during the Cold War and with some reluctance post the collapse of the Soviet Union, but with a proviso – that the US agrees to be the consumer of last resort. This arrangement provided some comfort because countries which have sold their goods to the US, can now use the dollars to buy goods from other countries as more than 80 per cent of world trade is denominated in dollars especially crude oil, the lifeline of the global economy.

But with the US in full bankruptcy and its citizens (the largest consumers in the world) being unable to borrow further monies to buy fancy goods from China, Japan and the rest of the world, the demand for dollar has evaporated. The dollar status as a reserve currency and its usefulness is being questioned more vocally.

The End Game

The present fallout can be summarized in simple terms:

Should a bankrupt (the US) be allowed to use money created out of thin air to pay for goods produced with the sweat and tears of hardworking citizens of exporting countries? Adding insult to injury, the same dollars are now purchasing a lot less than before. So what is the use of being paid in a currency that is losing rapidly its value?

On the other hand, the US is telling the whole world, especially the Chinese that if they are not happy with the status quo, there is nothing to stop them from selling to the other countries and accepting their currencies. But if they want to sell to the mighty USA, they must accept US toilet paper reserve currency and its right to create monies out of thin air!

This is the ultimate poker game and whosoever blinks first loses and will suffer irreparable financial consequences. But who has the winning hand?

The US does not have the winning hand. Neither has China the winning hand.

This state of affairs cannot continue for long, for whatever cards the US or China may be contemplating to throw at the table to gain strategic advantage, any short term gains will be pyrrhic, for it will not be able to address the underlying antagonistic contradictions.

When the survival of the system is dependent on the availability of credit (i.e. accumulating more debts) it is only a matter of time before both the debtor and creditor come to the inevitable conclusion that the debt will never be paid. And unless the creditor is willing to write off the debt, resorting to drastic means to collect the outstanding debt is inevitable.

It would be naïve to think that the US would quietly allow itself to be foreclosed! When we reach that stage, war will be inevitable. It will be the US-UK-Israel Axis against the rest of the world.

The Prelude to the End Game

The US economy will be spiraling out of control in the coming months and will reach critical point by the end of the 1st quarter 2010 and implode by the 2nd quarter.

The massive US$ trillions of dollars stimulus has failed to turn the economy around. The massive blood transfusion may have kept the patient alive, but there are numerous signs of multi-organ failure.

There will be another wave of foreclosures of residential and more importantly commercial properties by end December and early 2010. And the foreclosed properties in 2009 will lead to depressed prices once they come through the pipeline. Home and commercial property values will plunge. Banks’ balance sheets will turn ugly and whatever “record profits” in the last two quarters of 2009 will not cover the additional red ink.

Given the above situation, will the Fed continue to buy mortgage-backed securities to prop up the markets? The Fed has already spent trillions buying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages with no potential substitute buyer in sight. Therefore, the Fed’s balance sheet is as toxic as the “too big to fail” banks that it rescued.

In the circumstances, it makes no sense for anyone to assert that the worst is over and that the global economy is on the road to recovery.

And the surest sign that all is not well with the big banks is the recent speech by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley at Princeton, New Jersey when he said that the Fed would curtail the risk of future liquidity crisis by providing a “backstop” to solvent firms with sufficient collateral.

This warning and assurance deserves further consideration. Firstly, it is a contradiction to state that a solvent firm with sufficient collateral would in fact encounter a liquidity crisis to warrant the need for a fall back on the Fed. It is in fact an admission that banks are not sufficiently capitalized and when the second wave of the tsunami hits them again, confidence will be sorely lacking.

Dudley actually said that, “the central bank could commit to being the lender of last resort… [and this would reduce] the risk of panics sparked by uncertainty among lenders about what other creditors think”.

To put it bluntly what he is saying is that the Fed will endeavour to avoid the repeat of the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros and AIG. It is also an indication that the remaining big banks are in trouble.

It is interesting to note that a Bloomberg report in early November revealed that Citigroup Inc and JP Morgan Chase have been hoarding cash. The former has almost doubled its cash holdings to US$244.2 billion. In the case of the latter, the cash hoard amounted to US$453.6 billion. Yet, given this hoarding by the leading banks, the New York Federal Reserve Bank had to reassure the financial community that it is ready to inject massive liquidity to prop up the system.

It should come as no surprise that the value of the dollar is heading south.

When currencies are being debased, volatility in the stock market increases. But the gains are not worth the risks and if anyone is still in the market, they will be wiped out by the 1st quarter of 2010. The S&P may have shot up since the beginning of the year by over 25 per cent but it has been out-performed by gold. The gains have also lagged behind the official US inflation rate. It has in fact delivered a total return after inflation of approximately minus 25 per cent. When Meredith Whitney remarked that, “I don’t know what’s going on in the market right now, because it makes no sense to me”, it is time to get out of the market fast.

In a report to its clients, Sociétté Général warned that public debt would be massive in the next two years – 105 per cent of GDP in the UK, 125 per cent in the US and in Europe and 270 per cent in Japan. Global debt would reach US$45 trillion.

At some point in time, all these debts must be repaid. How will these debts be repaid?

If we go by what Bernanke has been preaching and practising, it means more toilet paper currency will be created to repay the debts.

As a result, debasement of currencies will continue and this will further aggravate existing tensions between the competing economies. And when creditors have enough of this toilet paper scam, expect violent reactions!

Najib’s inner circle

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — The people in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s inner circle;

Tan Sri Peter Sondakh

Sondakh advises Najib on Indonesia.

He came into contact with Najib when he was negotiating to sell a controlling interest in his telecommunications group, Excelcomindo Pratama, to Malaysia’s national telecommunications company Telekom Malaysia in 2004.

Flush with cash from the sale of his telecommunications group, Sondakh, now 57, acquired hotels in Malaysia, including the Sheraton Imperial. The latter was owned by a financially troubled unit controlled by Telekom Malaysia’s parent company Khazanah Holdings, the country’s state-owned investment agency.

Since then, Sondakh has emerged as an informal personal adviser to Najib on matters related to Indonesia.

Omar Mustapha Ong

Omar was Najib’s aide when he was DPM.

The one-time special assistant to Najib owns a business consultancy called Ethos & Co.

Omar, who is 38 years old, also has links with Sondakh.

The two struck up a relationship several years ago when Omar was assigned by Najib, then Deputy PM, to build a network in Indonesia, which was identified as a potential investment destination for Malaysian companies, particularly state controlled enterprises.

Businessmen who know Omar say that he is being tapped for strategic advice.

He is also said to be the architect of the Premier’s “1 Malaysia” slogan — a call for a more united Malaysia, which has become the central theme of Najib’s first 100 days in office.

But Omar, who graduated from Oxford, has been ensnared in a controversy in recent weeks after the board of the national oil corporation Petronas rebuffed a proposal by Najib to appoint his young aide as a director.

Bankers and lawyers familiar with the situation say that the board of directors of Petronas opposed Omar’s position because he failed to honour his scholarship agreement with the oil corporation after it financed his studies in Britain.

After graduating in the mid-1990s, he worked briefly in Petronas and another government-linked corporation before joining consultancy firm McKinsey.

He left it to set up Ethos in early 2002 with several friends, and two years later was appointed Najib’s special officer in the DPM’s Office.

Omar did not respond to requests for comment.

Siew Ka Wei

Siew controls several public-listed entities.

The businessman and Datuk Mohamed Al-Amin Abdul Majid, a senior politician from the ruling Umno, are said to be close to completing a takeover of a 70 per cent interest in a private company that owns the Malay Mail.

Political handovers in Malaysia often result in changes in the top positions in the country’s mainstream media organisations and this is one change on the cards.

The lanky, cigar-chomping Datuk Siew, 53, is a controlling shareholder of several public-listed entities such as Nylex and Ancom.

Al-Amin, who is also 53, is a board member of both firms.

Tan Sri Tan Kay Hock

Tan is said to be a golf buddy of the PM.

He is the low-profile controlling shareholder of Johan Holdings, a public-listed investment holding company, and said to be a golf buddy of Najib’s.

The Financial Times had reported that Tan, 61, was the owner of the 607ha Guiana Island, which is now at the centre of a fraud case brought by the United States authorities against Texan billionaire businessman Allen Stanford.

Jho Low

Another low-profile businessman, he was a key architect of a multibillion-ringgit sovereign wealth fund established by the state of Terengganu.

The fund, called the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), has sparked controversy because it will be created using borrowed money and not existing capital held by the state. It will raise capital from a RM5 billion bond issue, which will be guaranteed by the Malaysian government.

Little is known of Penang-born Low, who a TIA official said is an adviser to Malaysia’s King, Sultan Mizan, and has close ties with several Middle East investment funds. — The Straits Times

India and China as the new economic powerhouses, taking over from US and UK?

What Is India and China Doing That Malaysia Has Neglected To Do? - By Matthias Chang (5/11/09)

By Matthias Chang

Wednesday, 04 November 2009 21:44

On 27th August 2009 I wrote an article, “An Appeal To Malaysia’s Prime Minister Cum Finance Minister – Re-Examine the Country’s Strategy For Foreign Reserves”, to urge our Prime Minister to examine the critical need to diversify our foreign reserves, specifically to increase our holdings of gold.

My call was unheeded.

I drew the attention of our Prime Minister to the 14th August 2009 Central Banks Gold Agreement (CBGA) specifically:

“Gold will remain an important element of global monetary reserves.”

• The gold sales already decided and to be decided by the undersigned institutions will be achieved through a concerted program of sales over a period of five years, starting on 27th September 2009, immediately after the end of the previous agreement. Annual sales will not exceed 400 tonnes and total sales over this period will not exceed 2000 tonnes.

• The signatories recognize the intention of the IMF to sell 403 tonnes of gold and noted that such sales can be accommodated within the above ceilings.

• This agreement will be reviewed after five years.

“It is significant to note that the IMF intends to sell 403 tonnes of gold and it is a no-brainer to venture a guess as to who will be the main buyer. China is desperate to unload its US toilet papers for gold and it has to be done carefully, as such sales ‘will be accommodated within the above ceilings.’ ”

I also drew the attention of the Prime Minister to the following data:

“The current situation of key European Central Banks’ gold reserves as a percentage of their total reserves are as follows:

France: 73%
Germany: 69.5%
Italy: 66.1%
Netherlands: 61.4%
Switzerland: 37.1%

In contrast, the key Asian Central Banks’ and Russia’s gold reserves are as follows:

Russia: 4%
India: 4%
Taiwan: 3.8%
Japan: 2.1%
China: 1.8%

Given this state of affairs, any sales by European central banks under the 3rd CBGA will not depress gold prices, as it will be inevitable for the underweighted Asian central banks to pick them up so as to bolster their miniscule reserves in gold. For more data, please reference World Gold Council.”

China has taken heed of the need to bolster her strategic reserves of gold. She has in fact called upon her citizens to accumulate gold!

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that, “Gold jumped to a record after India's central bank bought 200 metric tons of the metal from the International Monetary Fund, heightening speculation about more official purchases… The $6.7 billion sale to the Reserve Bank of India is 'the biggest single central-bank purchase that we know about for at least 30 years in such a short period,' said Timothy Green, author of 'The Ages of Gold.' 'The only comparable event was the U.S.'s steady purchases in the 1930s and 1940s.'”

What is significant is that India has taken up 50% of the IMF‘s allocation of 403 tonnes.

India has now come on board to the need to diversify their foreign reserves.

I believe that in the months to come, other Asian central banks will follow this lead.

I hope Malaysia will not remain in a state of denial.

And once again, I have shown to be ahead of the curve. By the first quarter of 2010, we will witness the 2nd wave of the global financial tsunami. The hoarding of cash by the global big banks will not be enough to stem the tide.

The 2nd global financial tsunami will be bigger and more devastating than the first. Be forewarned.

Malaysia’s recent budget has not addressed the fundamental issues.

Asian Renaissance Generation Wave

Generasi gelombang kebangkitan Asia

Oleh: Eekmal Ahmad

NOV 2 — Dari segala deretan memori, izinkan saya kongsi bersama cebisan ini. Semuanya bermula pada tahun 1999. Berbekalkan duit dari PTPTN yang saya simpan berdikit-dikit, akhirnya tertunailah hasrat untuk memiliki sebuah motosikal Honda model EX5. Ianya memudahkan untuk saya bergerak ke sana ke mari, juga untuk aktiviti pergerakan mahasiswa Islam di Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Motosikal itu kiranya dibenarkan untuk berbicara, pastinya banyak cerita saya terbongkar, yang manis, pahit, gembira, ketawa dan menangis.

Selepas melalui beberapa peringkat tarbiyah, bersenjatakan motosikal Honda itu, saya dan rakan-rakan sering ke Kuala Lumpur untuk menyertai demonstrasi. Baik demonstrasi tersebut menyanggah kewujudan sebuah kerajaan yang diterajui Umno-Barisan Nasional ataupun membantah aktiviti dan acara, yang pada pendapat kami bertentangan dengan hukum syarak. Negara Islam wajib ditegakkan, dan Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim yang masih merengkok dalam penjara bukanlah tokoh yang wajar dipercayai. Kecurigaan ini, mengikut perkiraan saya, adalah mirip kecurigaan al Ikhwan al Muslimoon terhadap Gammal Abdel Naser. Apa yang pasti kami sentiasa bergelora, idealistik dan yakin, kemenangan pada suatu hari milik kami.

Di pertengahan jalan, saya tertewas, hilang pertimbangan, lalu menamatkan pengajian undang-undang saya di UKM. Beberapa ketika, saya pulang ke Alor Star, tetap setia bersama motosikal EX5. Buat menenangkan hati, sering saya berulang alik, sudah tentu bersama motosikal setia, ke pondok Dehrang mendengar kuliah Ustaz Nuruddin Al Banjari dan Ustaz Fahmi Zam Zam. Memperoleh ketenangan dan sokongan ibu bapa, permohonan memasuki kuliah undang-undang UiTM diajukan. Tahun 2002, ianya bermula kembali. Saya ke Shah Alam menjadi pelajar fakulti undang-undang walaupun minat untuk menjadi seorang peguam sudahpun padam.

Ketika masa “pemulihan” di Alor Star, oleh kerana kemaruk mendapatkan bahan bacaan, Berita Keadilan yang dipimpin Khalid Jaafar adalah antara bacaan wajib selain dari kitab-kitab fiqh dan Tafsir al Azhar. Minat itu saya teruskan ketika di Shah Alam. Ligat saya mengelilingi bandar tersebut mencari Berita Keadilan buat menghilangkan ketagihan. Tulisan dan wacana yang dicetus menggasak saya memikirkan kembali beberapa keyakinan serta sikap perjuangan. Saya mulai menaruh minat untuk mengenali Anwar Ibrahim. Tapi melalui apa? Makanya berbekalkan duit, sekitar RM30 dan motosikal itu, saya mencapai nashkah “Asian Renaissance,” karya versi Inggeris mantan timbalan perdana menteri, yang dihumban ke dalam penjara, di toko buku berdekatan. Dan buku itu menemani saya siang dan malam.

Secara tiba-tiba perasaan cemburu menyerang saya. Bibliografinya mengejek-ngejek saya. Senarai nama seperti Syed Naguib al Attas, Syed Hussein al Attas, Karl Popper, Tagore, T.S. Eliot, Sutan Takdir dan Dead European Males lainnya menerbitkan resah berpanjangan. Perpustakaan diserbu, mencari buku-buku yang ditulis oleh mereka semua dengan nafsu yang bergelojak. Kerap kali pemburuan berakhir dengan kekecewaan dan sumpah seranah. Misalnya “The Open Society and Its Enemies” karya Karl Popper, pemikir dari Vienna, langsung tidak terdapat di rak-rak buku perpustakaan. Bagi saya ianya adalah antara mehnah dan tribulasi yang paling besar pernah saya hadapi.

Perlahan-lahan gagasan Nahdah Asia Anwar Ibrahim menjelma. Meratib saya mengingati di antara pesan Gelombang Kebangkitan Asia (judul versi Melayu); “the cultivation of good taste takes the place of mediocrity and philistinism.” Mengunyah bab demi bab seperti Keunggulan Budaya, Ekonomi Manusiawi, Timur dan Barat serta Demokrasi dan Masyarakat Madani, merubah saya menjadi insan yang yakin. Kini saya menyendiri ber-”usrah” dengan membedah dan menghadam satu demi satu faham yang terkandung di dalam Gelombang Kebangkitan Asia. Ke “Melayu”-an dan Ke-“Islam”-an tidak menghalang saya dari menerobos tembok khusus intelektualisme yang selalu dikaitkan dengan golongan kelas menengah dan tinggi. Akar budaya dan juga agama menjadi jendela meneropong Islam dalam Sejarah dan Kebudayaan Melayu, Hamlet, John Keats, perdebatan seputar sekularisme, Ibsen dan FA Hayek.

Gelombang mempertemukan saya dengan sekelompok anak muda ataupun yang berhati muda. Dengan motosikal EX5 itulah saya berulang alik dari Shah Alam ke Telawi, meredah kedinginan malam dan kehangatan petang. Kami yang datang baik dari utara, timur dan selatan tanah air, membentuk komuniti kecil para seniman, penulis, wartawan dan pelajar. Akal, tradisi, kebebasan, moraliti, budaya, kuku besi dan agama menjadi tema perbincangan dan renungan. Usrah baru saya terdiri dari mereka yang fanatik berbahasa Melayu, sering menyeru agar menguasai, bukan sahaja bahasa Inggeris, bahkan bahasa Jerman, Mandarin, Pali dan Greek kuno serta menyanggah ketuanan perkauman yang meminggirkan etnik lainnya.

Rasa rendah diri disingkir jauh-jauh. Syarahan Karamah Insaniah, Pico della Mirandola bahawa “tiada yang lebih dikagumi selain manusia” bagaikan petir dan guruh yang berdentum di langit. Bingit dan mengejutkan. Gelombang memaksa sekaligus meyakinkan saya bahawa dikotomi di antara timur dan barat semakin kabur. Manakala Kebebasan dari regim yang tirani dan mengangkat martabat Budaya bangsa dari kelaihan berpanjangan merupakan tanggungjawab generasi perubahan; Generasi Gelombang Kebangkitan Asia.

Mulai saat itu saya mengenali, ataupun dengan lebih tepatnya, cuba mengenali sosok Anwar Ibrahim. Sudah tentu tidak sepenuhnya. Akan tetapi saya tidak perlu untuk bersekolah dengannya ataupun mengaku mengenali beliau selama berpuluh-puluh tahun. Cukup buat saya, menyedari serta memahami gagasan-gagasan beliau. Tidak perlu untuk membandingkan Anwar Ibrahim dengan tokoh-tokoh silam seperti Dr Burhanuddin al Helmy, Datuk Onn atau pun Alexander dari Macedonia itu!

Anwar adalah Anwar. Beliau melakar Gagasan Gelombang dan terbukti ampuh meroboh bongkah-bongkah Nilai-nilai Asia anutan beberapa pemimpin tua yang gusar legasi mereka akan lenyap dimamah keyakinan baru. Mentaliti pasca kolonialisme sudah tidak relevan. Sikap secara borongan membenci barat hanya menjadi alasan buat kebanyakan diktator memungkinkan kezaliman di tanah air sendiri. Manakala kita mengkritik pusat tahanan Guantanamo, pada ketika yang sama, negara ini juga memiliki pusat tahanan versinya sendiri di Kamunting.

Sekian lama kita berhadapan dengan politik hipokrasi. Dasar yang menguntungkan sebilangan kecil samada hanya untuk kepuasan elit pemerintah bumiputera ataupun tauke tauke kaya seharusnya ditolak tanpa ragu. Tidak ada justifikasi munasabah untuk kita menerima dalih membantu bangsa sedangkan hanya dua tiga kerat pimpinan barisan nasional sahaja yang kaya raya. Itulah manifestasi tertinggi politik perkauman sempit. Hakikatnya ianya cerita lama yang sudah basi.

Rakyat Malaysia terutamanya anak muda dari segenap lapisan masyarakat, merentasi sempadan agama dan etnik mempunyai kesedaran yang lebih baik dari apa yang disangkakan oleh sesetengah pihak. Pembentukan politik baru sesungguhnya tidak terelakkan. Acuan baru itu akan mengambil tempat, lalu bersaing dan mengalahkan politik lama yang bergantung kepada ketakutan, kecurigaan dan pemisahan antara kaum di negara ini. Kezaliman bukanlah hak milik mana-mana kaum, dan Keadilan adalah untuk semua.

Syaratnya ialah untuk terus beriltizam dengan Perubahan yang mengakar kepada hasrat untuk memelihara keluhuran perlembagaan, membanteras rasuah sehingga ke akar umbi, menjamin kedaulatan undang-undang, pengukuhan masyarakat demokratik dan berakhirnya politik perkauman.

Abad baru akan menjadi saksi, warisan pemerintah yang sekian lama “tahu apa yang terbaik untuk kita” sudah berakhir. Generasi Gelombang adalah kekuatan anak muda, suaranya, suara anak muda dan ianya arus deras yang mampu merubah lanskap politik serta sejarah negara ini. Anak muda mahukan sesuatu yang menyegarkan. Bahasa politik parokial perlu disisihkan. Perubahan yang luhur akan melibatkan semua untuk berbicara. Conversational Democracy adalah ciri penting penciptaan sebuah negara demokratik. Perdebatan dan wacana tidak menjurus kepada ungkapan seperti “pengkhianat bangsa” dan “agen yahudi.”

Generasi Gelombang tidak perlu menjadi apologetik dan mesti berani untuk mengaku bahawa bahasa demokrasi, kebebasan, keunggulan budaya dan pertumbuhan ekonomi yang mampan bukanlah monopoli mana-mana peradaban. Berbekalkan semangat baru, akan kita buktikan ungkapan Kipling bahawa, “There is too much in Asia and it is too old” adalah tidak benar sama sekali. Generasi Gelombang perlu merebut peluang mencipta dan menempa haluan baru buat negara ini.

Namun ini tidak bererti kita berhasrat mencipta yang baru dan terlepas dari pesan-pesan leluhur mahupun tradisi. Penggalian teks-teks klasik bagi saya menemukan kita dengan anjuran dasar untuk mengolah pandang dunia yang segar dan bertepatan dengan semangat zaman. Kebijaksanaan Bendahara Paduka Raja untuk menderhakai perintah Sultan misalnya, menyelamatkan Melaka dari hangus diberengus Jebat. Penulis Hikayat Hang Tuah menganyam cerita dan peri membiarkan pembacanya menilai di antara kesetiaan Hang Tuah, keterlanjuran Jebat, sikap tanpa usul periksa Sultan Melaka dan penderhakaan Bendahara Paduka Raja. Ternyata akhirnya penderhakaan Bendahara jualah yang menyelamatkan rakyat serta kerajaan.

Saya menyanggah beberapa telahan kononnya teks klasik ini menganjurkan taat setia tidak berbelah bahagi kepada pemerintah. Saya juga menolak untuk mengagung-agungkan perbuatan Jebat. Hikayat Hang Tuah adalah antara karya yang menampilkan kejelikan pemerintahan tanpa batasan. Ianya menjadi iktibar kepada kita untuk mencipta sebuah negara yang mempunyai batas-batas jelas untuk melindungi hak rakyat dari digasir pemimpinnya. Ini menguatkan hujah kita untuk menuntut sebuah negara dan masyarakat yang demokratik.

Kecurigaan di antara agama juga perlu dikikis. Islam tidak sewajarnya dipandang sebagai sebuah agama yang kuno, mandul daya intelektualismenya dan zalim semata-mata. Kegagalan penguasa dan sesetengah pemikir Melayu-Islam untuk mengangkat harakat agama adalah antara punca kecurigaan ini bertunas. Keilmuan Islam dan kekayaan tradisi kepustakaan Melayu dibiarkan usang kerana kebanyakan mereka lebih berminat untuk mengejar kerusi-kerusi empuk di institusi pengajian tinggi dan terpasung kerdil menjadi jiwa hamba. Manakala taraf keilmuan dan intelektualisme jauh merosot tatkala wacana-wacana falsafah, ekonomi dan agama yang rancak di luar negara langsung tidak dipedulikan. Kita masih menanti siapakah bakal mampu menandingi Syed Muhammad Naguib al Attas dan Syed Hussein al Attas.

Pilihanraya umum ke 12 menyaksikan Anwar Ibrahim dengan dokongan rakyat berbilang kaum dan agama, berjaya memimpin permuafakatan politik yang berjaya menafikan majoriti dua pertiga barisan nasional. Berbekalkan mesej Perubahan, permuafakatan tersebut berjaya menambat jiwa raga para pengundi. Perubahan secara mendadak menjadi komoditi hangat di pasaran. Saya rasa ini lah kali pertama dalam sejarah moden negara, rakyat Malaysia berada di kedudukan untuk menentukan “harga” dan “tawaran” siapa yang terbaik.

Inilah juga masanya buat kita, Generasi Gelombang menawarkan pakej yang terbaik untuk rakyat. Jelmakan keyakinan kita terhadap sebuah negara madani yang berpaksikan masyarakat demokratik, keluhuran perlembagaan, keunggulan budaya dan kemakmuran ekonomi. Jelaskan kepada rakyat mereka berhak kepada yang terbaik, makanya menjadi tanggungjawab kita untuk menjadi yang terbaik. Sudah tiba masanya kita menjayakan cita-cita “the cultivation of good taste take the place of mediocrity and philistinism.”

Eekmal Ahmad adalah kakitangan Pejabat Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim dan sering mendengar ulasan majalah Monocole, Wired dan Technological Review dari adik lelakinya.

MCA is suicidal

MCA Commits Political Suicide - By Matthias Chang (12/10/09)
By Matthias Chang
Sunday, 11 October 2009 16:58

On 7th October 2009, we cautioned the central delegates of the MCA not to listen to Chua Soi Lek, the political opportunist and former Minister of Health and Deputy President, when voting at the party’s EGM.

The run up to the party’s EGM revealed that powerful forces within UMNO and former leaders of MCA were backing Chua Soi Lek’s coup against the President.

The President was too independent-minded for their liking and his determination to expose the corruption committed by former leaders of MCA in collusion with other political forces in the RM12 billion Port Klang scandal, sent cold shivers down their spine. It was decided that the President must be liquidated at all costs!

Chua Soi Lek was the chosen instrument in the overall scheme of things. He was ambitious, has a big ego and could be easily manipulated to do the bidding of the political high priests.

The plan was to “kill two birds with one stone” – pass a vote of no-confidence against the President and the vote rejecting the reinstatement of Chua Soi Lek as the Deputy President.

For being a willing instrument in the coup against the President, Chua Soi Lek was spared the utter humiliation of being expelled from the party and was reinstated as an ordinary member. But he thought that the reward was the Presidency of the party. How stupid can he be?

Surely, as a politician and knowing the paramount objective of the shadow powers was to put a stop to the Port Klang corruption exposé, he ought to know that once his usefulness was no longer required, he would be dumped! But Chua Soi Lek is a political bulldozer and like all machines, he forgot that the real driver is someone else!

The 1155 central delegates, who voted in support of the no-confidence motion against the President, have revealed themselves as mere robots and the dregs of the party. By their action in supporting the call of the Shadow Powers, they have actually committed mass suicide.

How stupid and irresponsible.

The Presidential Council unanimously supported the Disciplinary Committee’s recommendation that the Deputy President, Chua Soi Lek be expelled from the party. Thus, by passing a vote of no-confidence against the President, these 1155 central delegates have also passed a vote of no-confidence against the Presidential Council.

The Central Committee (or rather those who voted for the suspension and not expulsion of Chua Soi Lek) thought that their compromise solution would save the party. But it was a cheap and cowardly compromise.

Adding insult to injury, the central delegates by a vote of l204 against 1095 annulled the compromise solution of the Central Committee.

The practical effect of these two resolutions at the EGM is that the entire leadership of the party (i.e. Presidential Council and the Central Committee) has been rejected by a little over half of the delegates attending the EGM.

The total turnout was 2304.

Thus, the no confidence vote was supported by 50% + 3 delegates.

The vote to annul the Central Committee decision was 50% + 52.

Whatever rationale these delegates may give for their stance, the inevitable conclusion of the people is that MCA has not changed and will not change even after its disastrous defeat at the March 2008 General Elections. It is a party of the well-connected tycoons. These delegates have shown that they support corruption and the status quo.

The people had hoped that by his actions in rooting out corruption at the highest levels in the party, the President would usher a new era of reform and change. But it was not to be.

The Prime Minister by choosing a former Menteri Besar, who was found guilty of corruption as the candidate for the Bagan Pinang By-elections, has sent an unambiguous message to MCA that corruption and tainted leaders would be tolerated.

1155 MCA delegates responded to the message of the Prime Minister by rejecting their President who courageously exposed corruption within his party and removing a tainted leader.

What would be the consequences for MCA and the Barisan Nasional?

In my book, Will Barisan Nasional Survive Beyond 2010? I warned that if the status quo remains, the ruling party would be defeated in the next General Elections.

The recent events have not only strengthened my belief in such an outcome, but are further evidence that the Barisan Nasional component parties’ leaders are political bankrupts!

I cry for my country!

Reject Chua Soi Lek campaign!

Common Sense - Why Chua Soi Lek Is Not Fit To Lead MCA - By Matthias Chang (7/10/09)
By Matthias Chang
Tuesday, 06 October 2009 21:46

Chua Soi Lek is an opportunist and a lousy one at that. He is also a political coward. If the central delegates of MCA in the forthcoming EGM listen to this desperate man, it will be the end of MCA.

This opportunist has come out with a manifesto with the stupid slogan, The 3Rs – Reject, Reunite and Rejuvenate – in an attempt to garner support for his bid to oust Ong Tee Keat and hijack MCA for his true political masters!

Forget all the political noise and use common sense to evaluate this politician’s ugly ambitions.

Forget also his escapades. Zoom in on one factor and one factor only.

What is this factor?

Simple!

At the last MCA elections for the leadership of the MCA, this opportunist had a deal with another Mr. Chua who was once the Minister of Health. It was agreed that Chua Jui Meng would take on Ong Tee Keat for President, while Chua Soi Lek would vie merely for the Deputy President post. On paper, the two C-partnership was a formidable team, but they overlooked the fact that CCs just don’t carry any weight!

If Chua Soi Lek had the genuine desire to reform MCA and the vision to transform MCA, he should have challenged Ong Tee Keat after Ong Ka Ting resigned as President.

The sad fact was that he did not. He did not have the courage of his convictions to take a stand and challenge Ong Tee Keat.

The cunning Chua Soi Lek goaded Chua Jui Meng to take on Ong Tee Keat knowing that Jui Meng would lose. In fact, Chua Soi Lek ensured the defeat of Chua Jui Meng when his supporters did not vote for Jui Meng. But Jui Meng was naïve enough to believe that in exchange for his supporters’ votes to Soi Lek, the latter would also deliver his block of votes. But it was not to be and as they say, the rest is history.

Chua Soi Lek’s game plan was to be elected as Deputy President, and when the time is ripe, launch a coup against Ong Tee Keat.

Can anyone trust a leader as devious as Chua Soi Lek? Why have a manifesto now? Why not during the party elections?

He wants to reunite and rejuvenate the MCA, but the means he has adopted have divided the rank and file and sowed mistrust.

Chua Soi Lek is a pariah and he should be treated as such.

A better 3Rs slogan would be Reject, Reject and Reject Chua Soi Lek!

The ultimate test of Najib's leadership

An Appeal To Malaysia’s Prime Minister cum Finance Minister - Re-examine The Country’s Strategy For Foreign Reserves - By Matthias Chang (27/8/09)

By Matthias Chang

Wednesday, 26 August 2009 20:30

Many visitors to my website have queried why I have not written any articles concerning the global economy in general and the Malaysian economy in particular in the last few weeks. I have not bothered to reply to those queries because what needed to be said and or written have been said and written by me repeatedly for the last one year.

I have warned that the present global stock market rally will not last, it is a suckers’ rally. But few have taken heed of the warning. There are no green shoots, and recovery if any, will be a few years down the road, not 2009 or 2010.

Just a few days ago, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz warned that the dollar’s role as a store of value is questionable and the currency has a high degree of risk. Professor Nouriel Roubini is of the view that there will be a U shape recovery, with a rising risk of a double-dip W shaped recession. But what was significant is that Professor Roubini takes the view that the present crisis is one of solvency, and not just liquidity and that true deleveraging has not begun yet because the losses of financial institutions have been socialized and put on government balance sheets.

Only time will be the final judge as to who is correct in the assessment of the present and future economic scenarios.

The purpose of my writing this article is to highlight the deafening silence of experts on the issue of gold reserves held by key central banks of the developed nations.

This is also my primary concern for the Malaysian economy.

I am known for using common sense in analyzing complex economic / financial problems and thus far, I have been proven right time after time in the general direction in which the global economy and the Malaysian economy are heading.

I believe that in the coming months, many countries in Asia will experience a rude awakening, to put it mildly.

In medical terms, it would be a massive financial heart attack in which our financial doctors will be totally disorientated and unable to assist the patient!

Since the financial crisis of 1997, many Asian central banks were led to believe that the best way to prevent future attacks on their currencies was to accumulate as much foreign currency reserves, preferably US dollars. And the quickest and safest route was to export and export to the mighty US in exchange for the dollars created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve.

The hardworking Asians worked their butts out and sold goods for mere paper currency, in actual fact toilet papers!

China led the way, and today she has the largest US dollar foreign reserve, followed closely by Japan.

But, our central bankers in Asia took no notice of the status and ratio of the gold reserves held by key European central banks. Additionally, Europe had the advantage of the euro as a “secondary reserve” currency.

As a result of the ongoing financial crisis, the Fed and the US Treasury have caused $trillions to be created out of thin air to stimulate the US economy. Never before, has so much US toilet paper been injected into the international banking system. The system is now choking in toilet papers!

While China, Japan, Russia and other Asian central banks are fretting about the decreasing purchasing power of the US dollar, the global banking elites seem impervious to the risk and danger of such an amount of toilet paper in the system.

Why?

The answer lies in the opening statement of the 3 Central Bank Gold Agreements (CBGA). In the latest CBGA, 19 national central banks and the European Central Bank were parties to the arrangement for the orderly sale and purchase of gold. The first agreement was made in 1999. Read the opening statement carefully:

“Gold will remain an important element of global monetary reserves.”

In the latest agreement, dated 14th August 2009, the above statement was repeated and followed by:

• The gold sales already decided and to be decided by the undersigned institutions will be achieved through a concerted program of sales over a period of five years, starting on 27th September 2009, immediately after the end of the previous agreement. Annual sales will not exceed 400 tonnes and total sales over this period will not exceed 2000 tonnes.

• The signatories recognize the intention of the IMF to sell 403 tonnes of gold and noted that such sales can be accommodated within the above ceilings.

• This agreement will be reviewed after five years.

It is significant to note that the IMF intends to sell 403 tonnes of gold and it is a no-brainer to venture a guess as to who will be the main buyer. China is desperate to unload its US toilet papers for gold and it has to be done carefully, as such sales “will be accommodated within the above ceilings.”

In the 90s, European central banks’ reserve portfolios were dominated by gold, ranging from 70% to 90% of total reserves. The abovementioned CBGAs were agreements made by the central bank cartel to control the price of gold when they are being sold by signatories of the CBGA.

During the period of the 1st CBGA, when 2000 tonnes of gold were sold, the price of gold rose by 52%. Since then, gold has risen continuously in what has been a secular bull market and in spite of gold sales by central banks. And the future trend is one of rising prices. Anyone who refuses to pay attention to this startling fact is an idiot!

Applying common sense, why should there be anymore debate as to the strategic value of gold?

For the doubting thomases out there, maybe the quotation below will be a wake-up call:

“With gold holdings amounting to 1,040 tonnes, it holds a substantial part of its currency reserves in the form of gold.”

- The Swiss National Bank

And with the dollar weakening further in the months and years ahead, the need for gold as a strategic reserve is one of paramount importance. The fact that the signatories to the 3rd CBGA have agreed to cut back the ceiling from 500 tonnes to 400 tonnes and inclusive of the IMF sales is indicative that there is a shift in the thinking of the 19 central bankers to this agreement.

The implications are obvious. When the shit hits the ceiling fan, following the run on the dollar, countries with significant amounts of gold as reserves will have a strategic advantage.

The current situation of key European Central Banks’ gold reserves as a percentage of their total reserves are as follows:

France: 73%
Germany: 69.5%
Italy: 66.1%
Netherlands: 61.4
Switzerland: 37.1%

In contrast, the key Asian Central Banks’ and Russia’s gold reserves are as follows:

Russia: 4%
India: 4%
Taiwan: 3.8%
Japan: 2.1%
China: 1.8%

Given this state of affairs, any sales by European central banks under the 3rd CBGA will not depress gold prices, as it will be inevitable for the underweighted Asian central banks to pick them up so as to bolster their miniscule reserves in gold. For more data, please reference World Gold Council.

The central bankers that control the gold supply will be better able to steer their countries through the second wave of the financial turmoil when confidence in the toilet paper US$ sinks to the very bottom and the dash to the safety of gold is in full flight. It will not be inconceivable for the price of gold to shoot up to US$ 3,000 or more per oz! And I AM BEING VERY CONSERVATIVE in this estimate.

So where will Malaysia be in the coming second wave of financial turmoil?

I am not optimistic that we are prepared for such an eventuality.

Bank Negara is in a state of denial.

The Ministry of Finance is also in a state of denial.

I am told that some key advisers are pre-occupied playing golf and other extra-curricular activities rather than hunkering down and doing basic ground work.

Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had his chance in governing the country for 22 years and Badawi had a go at it for five years and now it is your turn. There is much to learn from the two administrations, the good and the bad.

The string of By-election defeats is most unsettling as well as distracting.

I hope you are still focused on economic issues as the perception on the ground is that you are being deluded by the rebound of the stock market as being indicative of a general recovery.

Mr. Prime Minister,

Please take heed of the warnings by Professor Stiglitz and Professor Roubini, even if you take the view that my analysis does not deserve your scrutiny.

This is the ultimate test of your leadership – to keep the Malaysian ship on even keel in stormy waters. Should you fail, disaster will visit the Barisan Nasional in 2012/2013.

As the Prime Minister of Malaysia, I wish you every success, but please do hurry up, as we had wasted five years of warming up during the previous administration.

Some of the political geniuses in Malaysia

Khairy Jamaluddin

KJ is an enigma representing the youngsters who clamour for change in Malaysia, under the stewardship of United Malays National Organization. His meteoric rise, notwithstanding the support and easy climb backed by his father-in-law, former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Badawi has been the talk of town since his days of helming the Deputy UMNO Youth Leader. He is smart, witty, intelligent, Oxford-educated 'new Malay' who aspires to lead Malaysia in the very near future. While his fate within UMNO is much to be guessed, some say he will go far. Others say he will be doomed. One thing for sure, never dismiss this bright young star, as detailed by the Khairy Chronicles.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

Mahathir, the grand old man of Malaysian politics is certainly here to stay. Love him or hate him, there is a certain acknowledge by all quarters that he was instrumental in the development of Malaysia to date, perhaps sacrificing some of the fundamentals enshrined in the Constitution. Mahathir is also a master of perception and hold dear to the Machiavellian philosophy. To be decisive, firm, accurate, concise and precise are his trademarks in executing state chores. This no-nonsense statesman still plays a role in the Malaysian political scene, often making headlines criticising governments, be it state or federal level. At 84 years old and still going strong, expect much more of 'Mahathirism' in the future.

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim

Anwar Ibrahim, for the right or wrong reasons, will always be the icon of charismatic leadership. His ability to influence the masses to rally for his Reformasi campaign proved that he has substantial support from quite a majority of Malaysians. Since falling out from UMNO, he has been advocating Ketuanan Rakyat and consistent in his struggle for a better Malaysia. His oratory skills are unmatched by any politician in Malaysia so far, dead or alive. The Anwar today may or may not be the Anwar yesterday. But it is imperative that he remains the opposition icon and hope to unite Pakatan Rakyat and mount a strong challenge to the ruling coalition.

Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak

By virtue of being the Prime Minister, we must acknowledge Najib of his achievement although one might think he has it all on the silver platter by virtue of his family. Najib may not be the brightest politician around, but he is certainly smart enough to be labelled a political genius. He has travelled a long way since his days of UMNO youth chief and Pahang Chief Minister, and yet he has not really been tested by open elections in his party, and yet, the people accepted and respected him. No doubt, he controls the cash cows currently, but ultimately, the 13th general election will be his performance yardstick. His genius flair will show if he can overturn the rakyat's anger against the Barisan Nasional.

Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat

This Kelantan PAS CM and Spiritual Leader is what the Pope is to the Catholics, to his own people of Kelantan and PAS supporters. His words are powerful and combined with the religious credentials he has in his belt, it is no surprise that Nik Aziz will remain most influential in PAS.

The truth about the Universiti Malaya land scam

HARAPKAN PAGAR – PAGAR MAKAN PADI .. WHO WILL SAVE UNIVERSITY MALAYA? – malaysia-today

Thursday, 28 February 2008 ( arkib)

When Amin Jalaludin, UM’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor cum ENT surgeon turned developer announced on behalf of his boss, Rafiah Salim, lawyer turned banker cum UN Human Resources Manager cum Vice-Chancellor and currently jet-setting businesswoman, the proposal by the Universiti of Malaya’s governing board to let a suspicious private entity called PPC-MINT-GLOMAC develop 27 acres of irreplaceable campus land on February 9, 2008, Malaysians knew that it had all the makings of a major scam.

Amin announced that the successful completion of the development project is expected to provide UM with a minimum income of RM312 million or the land value of RM200 million plus a share of the developer's profit, whichever is higher.

All this money would presumably help the UM financially in its faltering attempts to redress its declining academic and research standards. One would truly love to buy UM’s efforts to create a giant multi-billion dollar endowment fund similar to that of Harvard or Yale until one realizes that the person who is announcing the deal is not a businessman but is a medical doctor, spent most of his life giving tutorials and power point presentations and works for a VC with a very shady banking past in tandem with the Prime Minister’s speech writer cum proxy, Anuar Zaini who has now made a name for himself as an underhanded lackey of the Prime Minister who uses governmental positions to rip off our institutions and tax payers money to fill up the coffers of UMNO and their personal Swiss accounts.

Since when did our academics decide to go into business? If their depressing role in helping plunge our University standards are anything to go by, we would then have to expect that these same greenhorns in business will in all likelihood sell off the University’s assets and realise later that they have lost not only their assets but will then have to apply for a bail-out using tax payers money or file for bankruptcy. But Rafiah, Amin, Anuar Zaini and all those other Emeritus Professors wouldn’t be sticking around to attend creditor’s meetings then would they? They would have gracefully retired to their homes in Australia leaving yet another institution in debt and Malaysians a lot poorer. Maybe Idris Jala would be made available to the University Malaya then, but it may be too late as, unlike MAS, there may be no more assets to sell for him to soup up the books and bring it back to black in a jiffy.

This country never learns. That little piece of land was provided for the University so that they produce the best brains that will help develop this country. The land was not meant to grow palm oil plantations, mine tin, grow skyscrapers or gated communities. But we cannot expect more from the likes of the University’s current administrators if past blunders are anything to go by.

Despite adequate land, the UM entered into a sweetheart deal to purchase the 25 storey Telekom Office building at Lembah Pantai for a consideration of RM70 million in April 2006. Whether Rafiah truly purchased it in good faith for its postgraduates or was told to utilise UM development money at the behest of Anuar Zaini is contentious. But why would they want to buy a building located right outside their gates when they seem to have abundant “prime” land right in the middle of KL and PJ inside the campus. A first-class postgraduate building on campus grounds would, you have thought, been more relevant than a clubhouse.

But there you are, welcome to the warped up thinking of Universiti Malaya’s top but spineless brass. For a university that cannot supply its students with enough water and provides patchy broadband connections when you are located right smack in the middle of the Klang Valley surrounded by world class infrastructure only shows that what requires selling is not the university’s land but whole sale eradication of the entire Universiti Malaya board of directors and its top administrative staff. Which makes you wonder if the Sultan of Perak is purview to these going ons?

Perhaps Universiti Malaya should first focus on giving students a first-rate education by having equitable policies in the intake of both students and lecturers. This simple measure may do a world of good in raising its dismal rankings. It should also perhaps focus on reducing wastage especially at its medical campus where reportedly its new tower block operates without a CF allegedly as a result of shoddy construction work sourced out to crony companies. It should perhaps also explain why it’s profitable and income generating private wing is to be remotely located at a new logistically improper location by its main gates far away from the rest of its clinical services at its main tower. The completed 25 million ringgit building remains underutilised till this day and appears to be degenerating into a white elephant. And maybe it would also be a good time to explain its foray into a botched 50 million ringgit Hospital Information deal all courtesy of the tax payer.

But Universiti Malaya wouldn’t be the first university that would have goofed up valuable public money. In 1995, two lecturers from its economic planning department at UiTM put up a paper about buying up PKNS’s underutilized condominiums at Section 7 Shah Alam. The idea was to convert it to a hotel resort to rival other similar resorts in the Klang Valley and make money while helping train students. The University authorities bought the story but didn’t have the money. No worries. EPF apparently lent RM55 million to buy up the property and refurbish it to resort status in the happening city of Shah Alam. In September 1997, the Intekma Resort & Convention Center opened to the public but response has been less then enthusiastic. It currently serves to train students and houses mainly university staff who are there for conferences. No one really knows if EPF got its money back.

In December 2002, UiTM formed its fledgling Medical Faculty and appointed a research based professor from UKM to run it. It’s students had no proper teaching hospital and this premier Bumiputra university had to virtually beg the Ministry of Health to use Selayang Hospital. The MOH allowed the usage of Selayang, albeit grudgingly. Till this day both the university’s local and expatriate lecturers have limited access to patients, clinics or operating theaters. No prizes for guessing how UiTM medical students are going to turn out as doctors. But UiTM has access to funds, and lots of it. They even have the political muscle. The Agong is their Chancellor. They could have bought off Selayang Hospital, Sungai Buloh Hospital or even both of them.

But that would not be UiTM. A grandiose money making scheme had to be connived for the benefit of all and sundry in typical Malaysia incorporated style. The Dean of the Medical Faculty, who entrenched himself by employing up to 70% expatriate lecturers, all of whom would positively appraise him annually so that there would be no complications when their contracts came up for renewal, proposed not one but twin medical cities to be located and built on the outskirts of Shah Alam by raising funds through PFI’s backed by PNB’s Golden Hope and more ominously pilgrim’s money at Tabung Haji.

This elaborate 1.2billion ringgit deal had apparently the approval of none other then the mother of all penghulus, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Scant attention was paid to how in God’s name cash flows are going to be matched through Malaysian patients used to paying RM1 for consultations at hospitals. Needless to say, the taxpayer will be called in to perform their solemn duty and baileth yet another cocked up project if this plot saw the light of day.

Our universities will need to stand on their own feet as surely as the sun rises the next day. The days of splurging are nearing an end as the country’s resources run out. But to ask a chemistry professor who has never run a corporation or even managed the local 7/11 to hop off his chair and start getting the billions to role into the university’s coffers would be a risky financial gamble. For that you need a highly experienced CEO and CFO who have been battle hardened in the private sector. You need to pay these guys well and monitor their performances like a hawk. Maybe all public universities who want to see money ought to have stints at HELP, INTI or Lim Kok Wing universities. But you certainly cannot use the same cooks who brought the university to their academic knees to go on another jaunt that requires razor sharp business acumen. To do so would be to invite a financial calamity to our already shaky public universities.

So who indeed will save Universiti Malaya? When the Tunku was down and out after 1969, students and student leaders went out to town running him down for Malaysia’s various ills including the loss of Singapore. Today, we have in our midst government sponsored nameless corporations who are threatening to swallow whole our universities and their heritage but yet not a whimper. What has happened to its students, its alumni and its famous sons and daughters this proud university once gave a future? Will they come back to save it or will they be part of the conspiracy to get a piece of its real estate?

EJB

FREE GAZA MOVEMENT

An Appeal to Free Gaza - A Profile of Courage - The Free Gaza Movement - By Christopher and Matthias Chang (20/7/09)

By Christopher and Matthias Chang

Monday, 20 July 2009 00:35

Death creeps on you unexpectedly, sometimes like a thief in the night, sometimes it leaves a calling card, telling us that it is only weeks or months that we have left to make our arrangements and sometimes, it emerges as a savage disease that ravages your body.

The shock and pain lingers on and tried as hard as we can to feint composure and normality, the dark loneliness overwhelms us and we cry out in anger and in anguish - Why? Why now? Why in this way?

To love someone for so long and to see life slipping away is an unbearable burden. It is unfair. It is just not right. We turn back the pages of a life once shared. And it seems like only yesterday that the first word we learned to cherish, would forever linger in our lips – “mummy”.

We remind ourselves to be strong … there are just too many things to be said and yet cannot be said. We are lost for words. And as tears well in our eyes, we are consoled that at the very least, we have our time to say our goodbyes and to seek forgiveness. The final hour is yet to come.

But there are others who are less fortunate and we must not let our own grief and pain to cast a shadow over their plight and suffering – a lingering pain and anguish that seems never to go away, even after fifty long years.

We speak of death and crimes committed against the heroic Palestinian people.

The smell of blood, shed in vain lingers in the air everyday in Palestine.

A bullet splits the skull and a mother is left carrying a dead child in her arms.

An explosion flattens a tenement block but the mangled bodies of women and children beneath steel and rubble are mere statistics.

Homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship are destroyed with impunity with the latest weaponry supplied by the US to Israel but the world turns a blind eye to the atrocities. War Crimes Tribunals are quick to be established against third world tyrants but US and Israeli war criminals are beyond the reach of international law.

For over two years, the Palestinians in Gaza were starved of basic food and other necessities by a cruel and inhumane blockade imposed by Israel and tacitly supported by the US, the European Union and neighbouring countries of the Middle East.

Their cries for help and justice were rebuffed by the international community but the courage of two NGOs – Viva Palestina and The Free Gaza Movement have put to shame the double standards and hypocrisy of several leading member countries of the United Nations. Defying the brutal Israeli regime, the two organizations broke the siege and blockade of Gaza. But more need to be done, for the blockade of Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe.

Viva Palestina succeeded in bringing two convoy of lorries laden with supplies through the Rafah Crossing, while the Free Gaza Movement since August 2008 and using only small boats and against all odds broke the sea blockade repeatedly.

Although the first five voyages successfully reached Gaza, the only international boats to do so since 1967, the last three attempts have been violently stopped by the Israeli military.

On one occasion their boat, Dignity was rammed by Israeli naval vessels and just recently on June 30, 2009 another boat, The Spirit of Humanity was illegally commandeered in international waters and the volunteers were forcefully arrested by Israeli commandos and incarcerated in prison for six days (some longer) for the alleged offence of intruding into Israel illegally!

Those unlawfully imprisoned included Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The cargo of medical supplies and children toys were confiscated.

Undeterred by these brutal actions of the Israeli military, the members of The Free Gaza Movement are determined to continue in their efforts to break the illegal siege of Gaza by sailing unarmed boats with human rights workers, journalists and parliamentarians, as well as much needed humanitarian and reconstruction supplies.

The courage and determination of the members of The Free Gaza Movement led by its chairperson, Huwaida Shapiro is exceptional and the only protection they have is the spotlight of world conscience and your unstinting support.

Last week, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and members of the Perdana Global Peace Organisation and the Kuala Lumpur Foundation To Criminalise War met with this incredible team of volunteers and pledge to assist them in their endeavours.

Their number one priority is to get more boats to break the siege of Gaza.

Without boats, supplies cannot get into Gaza.

Each boat costs €200,000 to €300,000 and they need to have at least 5 boats by yesterday.

Winter is coming soon and the Palestinians in Gaza need shelter, food and clothing. Time is of the essence.

We therefore appeal to all Malaysians to come forward to help the Palestinians.

You can help by:

1) Donating generously to acquire the boats to bring supplies to Gaza;

2) Be a volunteer to help the Free Gaza Movement;

3) Disseminate this appeal to as many people as possible;

4) To lobby your Members of Parliament and State Assemblymen and women to support this noble endeavour;

5) More importantly, to lobby the Malaysian Government, specifically the Prime Minister to finance the purchase, at the minimum one boat.


For further enquiries and clarification, contact the following:

Dr. Zulaiha Ismail at +6019-3843913

Mr. Ram Kathegesu at +6012-2270159