Berita MMM #002 : Muyiddin not the only crook, its a racketeering team.

Last month, there were reports of Malaysia International Tuna Port(MITP) scandal at Malaysia Chronicle and The Malaysian Insider. In the reports, Tony Pua was questioning forcefully Tan Sri Muyiddin role in this fiasco.

Tony Pua's tirade was focused on Muyiddin and BN government, nothing new really. But Tony's defense of Credit Rating Agencies(CRAs) really woke me up. IMHO, it was totally unnecessary. CRAs very often appears to be grey institutions and sometimes downright crooked.

BN ministers acts as part of a racket(gerombolan cukong)with other parties. In PKFZ or the current MITP, CRAs or the bond buyers(instituional investor)have been in business for sometime and cannot claim ignorance to the fact that only the Finance Ministry can give legal guarantees. Any grey support letter should have been verified of their legality during the early stages to avoid confusion many years later.

All the parties involved knows what was really going on. It's really just part of a elaborate scheme to help private groups to get easy money by pawning the state coffers. For the racketeering team, they assume that they can always get away scott free because the rakyats are a bit slow.

My suggestion is that Pakatan Rakyat should really rethink their narrow strategy of laying the blame always solely on BN. The ministers are not the only crooks in town. They couldn't have looted the multi-billions on their own.

So the abusive relationship is really between the rakyats(victims)and the racket(predators). To attack Muyiddin only will give UMNO more ammunition to attack Pakatan as anti-Malay.

So to attack the racketeering team as whole and suggesting ways to dismantle it, does seem more palatable to rakyats of all groups. Then you might also dispel UMNO exclusive ethic advantage into just another plain crook.

All this and much more in the 2nd Episod of Berita MMM. I really hope this youtubing project can reach out beyond English speaking middle class to the masses. So I would appreciate it if you help to spread the word.

Sports betting is not a 'pasar malam lesen'. It's a monopoly right.

The 2010 World Cup is already over and the Vincent Tan's BolaGate took a hike(for now). I was too busy to write something during that time. So I would like to dig it up now with my few cents.


Pics from anilnetto.com


Pics from anilnetto.com

The huge fiery(fanned by Pakatan Rakyat) public outcry caused PM Najib to make an U-Turn on awarding sports betting license to Vincent Tan. The 2 main spots that Pakatan try to hit are :
(1) Moral and Religious ground.
(2) That sports betting is just a tool to help Vincent Tan in bankrolling Barisan Nasional.
This post is going to stay clear of any moral and religious controversies. So I like to go a bit into some stuff that precedes point no (2).

One thing that struck me most during saga was MCA strong support for legalized betting. So it is going to be convenient their press statements as a tool to discover further.

MCA press statement on 15 May 2010 :
"MCA does not agree with any form of gambling, be it legal or otherwise, and raising revenue should never be used as a valid reason to justify legalization of the gaming industry."
Seems pretty harmless.
"Licensing conditions imposed must include the punter’s minimum age requirement, maximum betting amount, outlets’ location and business operating hours, etc."
Notice how it is just about normal stuff of a sport betting counter. (However Vincent Tan later alluded that it was possible for him to appoint sports betting agent without using his Sports Toto premises.)

And another press statement on 26 June 2010 :
"From Day One, this issue has been politicised to the hilt by Pakatan Rakyat leaders who were posturing for selfish interests."
So does this mean the rakyat are protesting because of PR self interest and not the nation interest.
"It is a shame that the Government has lost a golden opportunity to regulate a thriving sector in the underground economy. Had sports betting been legalised, the Government would have been able to manage and mitigate the social impacts that come with the industry."
A lost opportunity for whom?

What MCA is not pointing out that the government is not just dishing out a pasar malam license but is in real terms relinquishing her monopoly rights. This monopoly right will give Vincent Tan pornographic level of profits (free lunch).

So the question is really how the government is going to recover most of the proceeds of sports betting (not just a meager gambling tax). IMHO sports betting rights should be treated as a natural monopoly right of the state and must not be abused to enrich private individuals. So the there must be a legal plus operational in place before the awarding of any monopolistic or oligopolistic right. It is to ensure that the appointed 3rd party operator gets their decent management fee but cannot runaway with the money through accounting fraud. Malaysians already have endless nightmares with the PLUS, IPPs, utilties and other form of oligarchs.

Here are some points that I lifted from Josh Hong writings regarding the check and balance:
1) What are the limits for the profit of legalized sport betting and how to enforce it?
2) How does the government check for accounting fraud to steal profits (e.g through inflating operating expenditure)?
3) How do we measure the effectiveness of legalized betting? How do we gather data on the betting volume by new legalized gamblers versus the reduction underground betting volume? Is it going to be included in Najib's transformational KPI renaissance?
4) How to regulate the disbursement of legalized betting proceeds to charitable and good causes?
5) If legalized sports betting cannot fulfill its objectives, does unwinding it going to cost a bomb for the taxpayers?

Here is a very amateurish video I've made on this issue:






Regulating sports betting is just a lesser of two evils. The main reasons for gambling malaise in our society are :
1) Greed. (Too moral, spiritual and personal for me to elaborate).
2) A screwed up general economy. When people wages are so low compare to the real cost of living, they being being pressure to into huge debt. And in their desperateness to end this misery they get hook on gambling and become even more in debt. So herein lies the vicious cycle.


Vincent Tan and MCA argued that cash based legalized betting will deter people from borrowing from Ah Long. I think they are very far out with this one. Of course Ah long will prefer normal folks to gamble with them. But with their interest rate of 18-22% pa, they don't really give a damn who you are goings to gamble with or whether you are taxi driver borrowing to send your children to public universities(true story).

One last word for MCA. Since the ministers from your parties have approved so many licensed money lender, why are the Ah Longs still terrorizing every neighborhood in the country with impunity?

So it is not as simple as just giving license away.

Milk Powder Thefts. Trivial matters?

To some of you out there, this post is going to be something so trivial that it is not worth writing about.

My mom was at the neighborhood Chinese medicine shop in the morning. The lady boss was complaining about 2 cases of milk powder being stolen from her brother shop and also hers. In the first case the thieve was a middle age Chinese uncle and the second was a middle age Indian auntie. The normal reaction would be to dismissed these cases as just your normal insignificant shoplifting cases.

Due to my paranoid character, I am going to make some baseless speculations from here . The perpetrators seems to be your average looking aunties or uncles.

Does this make sense? Is it worth the risk to steal large items like tins of milk powder right under the nose of watchful keepers of small shops ?

If there is a rapid rise of such crime, does this means that there are parents out there who are so desperate that they need steal milk powder for their babies or toddlers?

Could this be the symptom of the the section of Malaysians in between the poor and middle class breaking down?
Would the lower middle class be the next to hit bottom ?
After which the upper middle class will start migrating en masse?
What is next, the cliffhanger collapse of Malaysia?

For those of you who have read this far, I sincerely apologize if find the above as nothing more than paranoid questions .

Malaysia, A Banana Constitutional Monarchy? (Updated)

I was watching an episode of Keiser Report on youtube the other day. In it, the hosts Max and Stacy likens the U.S. to a banana republic. So I figured it would also be quirky to draw some similar parallels with Malaysia too. But of course we need to use term 'Banana Constitutional Monarchy' instead.

So let's get started with some basic characteristic of a Banana Country :

1)Profits are privatized and debts are socialized.
The Malaysian government had been dishing out sure profit deals to private companies. For example we Berjaya Sports Toto,IWK, Highway concessions, Independent Power producers and many more unknown companies below mainstream radar.In addition to that we have many land giveaways at below market price (Kg Buah Pala, Naza TTDI and Godfather Daim).
Then we also have gigantic bailouts like CIMB(at least 3 times if I remembr correctly), Perwaja and numerous companies of ex-minister offsprings, We also transfer forex, tin hedging and other market manipulation losses onto the public shoulders.


2) Devalued paper currency in the international community.
Here is a chart I generated from World Bank. It shows the Real Effective Exchange Rate Malaysian Ringgit for the past 25 years.

Its basically an index that compares a currency with a basket of other currencies. The last peak was in 1984 and it has been downhill ever since. So that sort of explain why a Kapok guitar now cost RM100 compared to RM40 when I was back in college.

3)Kleptocracy.
Kleptocracy though not often used in here but it is actually the most accurate to describe Malaysia. Constitutional monarchy or Westminster democracy are no longer the basis for this country. Now the core of the Malaysia system is just kleptocracy, where the current bunch of ruling elites are nothing but thieves who spent most of their time stealing form the public. All sort of monopolies, oligarchies, toll booths, Approved permits, subsidies, compensations(for nonsensical reasons) and schemes are created to move money into the hands of ruling thieves and their proxies.

4)No principle of accountability within the government.
Unlike in UK or Japan where politicians and gov officials resigned over the slightest of impropriety. Those in Malaysia never need to take any responsibility for their wrongdoings.
For all those thousands deaths in NS camp, 1 Malaysia camps, Kg Memali and police custodies no minister or senior civil servants was held responsible. Where are the culprits for PKFZ, Bakun and other fail projects which losses amount to tens of billions? They are still smiling all the way to the banks and some are still occupying ministerial post.

Half of the MPs in Dewan Rakyat are there dubiously because of postal votes and gerrymandering. Dewan Negara is just a dumping ground for past shelf life rejects trying to become backdoor ministers or worse, just to secure a comfortable pension. Monty Python and Mr Bean gets more respect in the international community than our judges. Corruption exists in every level of our police and civil servants.

So it is fairly accurate to say that the whole government structure is just a rubber stamp by the kleptocrats 'kecil' and 'ular besar' kleptocrats to enrich themselves.

Malaysia 'Truly Banana...........'

Update 29Jun2010 : The government had just socialized another RM700 million of Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd debt.

Collapse

I've just watch Collapse a movie where Michael Rupert explain impending crisis of peak oil.


I am not really into conspiracy theories. But his explanation are strong and convincing. Michael really drives home the issue of the human over dependencies on oil and how we are ill prepared we are against its eventual depletion.

It's a great movie. If you cannot get the original DVD, just download Bit Torrent. A must watch and will change your view of the world.




A thought provoking excerpt from the movie:
"There was a guy named Von Clausewitz,who said that war is a continuation of politics by other means.
Politics is a continuation of economics by other means."

Promosi hebat Piala Dunia 2010 !!!!

Pinjaman Harga Runtuh !!! Pinajaman Harga Runtuh !!!!
Faedah tahunan hanya 5% ......


Sempena Piala Dunia 2010 Afrika Selatan, nampaknya peminjam wang berlesen Johor Bahru akan menngadakan Promosi Pinjaman Sukaria. Hebatnya peminjam berlesen ini sehingga boleh menawarkan faedah serendah 5% setahun.

Jika betul seperti diiklankan, maka siapa lagi mau pinjam wang dari bank. Mampuslah Maybank, CIMB, Public Bank, Citibank dan sebagainya.





Kanak-kanak tadika juga tidak dilupakan dalam promosi ini. Mungkin harimau bintang yang comel itu dapat memupuk semangat Piala Dunia dengan lebih kuat.

More on Sijil Beranak

After some feedback from a friend on facebook, it seems I may not have clearly express my concern. So here is a little more that I hope can clarify some things.

My friend feels that parents ICs and marriage cert basic requirements. Medical records on the other hand can strengthen the application and prevent fraud. Tightening procedures will curb problem with illegal aliens. I do agree in theory.

But a lot of later day aliens have already gotten birth cert or mykad. In Project IC Sabah, it was alleged that many ICs were just given away without the documentation requirement of that time. If they can flout basic rules back then, they sure as hell can do the same thing now. Perhaps in smaller scale. (Project IC Sabah - Dr Chong Eng Leong is an expert in Sabah illegal immigrants problem. Lim Kit Siang has also written exensively on this issue)

IMHO it is not about procedures. The real problem is the in-existence of political will. To crack down and check on these errant activities is not that difficult. In Pekan(Najib constituency), you can find Burmese refugees there. The authorities can just go there to investigate the allegations that some of these refugees have Mykad or voted during the elections? And whether they really possess the basic documents for IC or birth cert application?

But do anyone want to risk angering these key civil servants or campaign donations by investigating further. We cannot deny that, it might be very useful for some politicians to have inside help in create pool phantom voters with .

All these years,aliens can get item 1,2,3 or any documents through syndicate and insiders of registration department. Forging of a medical card or whatever additional documents is a non issue for aliens , except for maybe higher bribes.

But its a real problem esp for the natives in remote areas. So any more tightening of procedures, will only harm these marginalized folks. Instead of adding more requirements, the government should reinforce the basic services and access to these folks.

As for the solution corruption and abuses, that's a long road ahead for every Malaysian.

Sijil beranak ...

2 days ago I went to get a sijil beranak(birth certificate) for my newborn. I was quite shock by the increased in documents needed compared to the time of my eldest daughter.


The originals plus photocopies of documents required for birth certificate application.


To apply for a sijil beranak you need to provide :
1) ICs of both parents (originals and copies)
2) Marriage Cert (originals and copies)
3) Medical Doctor endorsement on the application form.
4) And shockingly copies of the mother medical record (every page).

It makes me wonder whether this tightening up of sijil beranak application are necessary. Or even effective in solving the problem of illegal immigrants. Does the goverment look at the weight gain pattern or blood sugar level recorded over the 42 weeks of pregnancy? Do they use these medical data to determine whether this application are fraudulent or not? Where do they find space keep all these papers?

As far as I know, the reason illegal immigrants can received Mykad or Malaysian Sijil Beranak by:
1) Forging documents - they will just forge marriage cert, medical cards or whatever the government can come up with.
2) And the main reason they can do the above is because there are corrupt officers who does the issuing for a bribe.

You are probably wondering, why get so excited over some red tape? Well it maybe small matter for us urbanites.

But for the poors in remote areas(orang aslis, Indians enslaved in estate, natives of Sabah & Sarawak), how on earth are they going get their sijil beranak or ICs? Intentionally or not all this bureaucracy will put them even deeper at the mercy of BN and their cronies in civil service. Without a paper proof of citizenship, their children will continue to be marginalized and be manipulated come election time.


Will this beautiful child get the basic health care or go to school as my daughter?

Photo lifted from Sofiyah Israa