I hold myself in state perplexed,
Wherefore these so-called friends have flexed
their blind obeisance to a thief
Who gladly lends this nation grief.
Affrightened, shocked, we then did gasp
at tales of nation’s riches grasp’d,
In revelations of ill gain
and debts of billions now retained
at cost of our own public purse
And echoes of our children’s curse.
And herein lies my ill content
My queried mind in bafflement
What makes these fools of certain grief
to take up cudgels for a thief,
To make false claims of justice bent
When Justice was what God had sent?
Perhaps our own minds were athwart
Too bubbled up to see the art?
Or mayhaps those who know facts well
were flummoxed at the blatant spell
T’was cast by Power’s heavy wand
That Great and Good would dumbly stand
aside as thieves ruled in their prime
with robes of gold to hide their grime,
and riches piled for those with might
to plunder all in broad daylight.
And in minority we stand
The few and frazzled of the land
Accused of being “out of touch”
We’re told that politics is such:
That “Bossku”’s cause is of the right,
That white is black and black is white!
Then destined are we for the fall
a nation that would not stand tall
to judge a thief a criminal,
but rather praise a convict’s gall.
Three Things I am Thinking about Today #10
- We should not be surprised when autocrats abuse their powers to pursue their own personal agenda, even if it includes the illegal surveillance of an ex-wife. Looks like the backlash against Big Tech is gaining even further momentum now.
- I wonder why some folks would rather risk their lives than submit to vaccinations – a mode of treatment that has been proven to subdue the most virulent diseases known to mankind. It is as if some of us are insistent on erasing themselves from the human gene pool. Very odd.
- The rise of petroleum in our energy mix has led to more than a century of geopolitics being driven by the politics of the Middle East. Now that we are confronting a future where renewable energy technology will become an increasingly significant part of the future of global energy, the security of supply of battery manufacturing – amongst many other potential flashpoints – will begin to feature prominently in the evolution of global politics. Will US-China trade tensions escalate into a Cold War-style balkanization of global supply chains? Will countries like Korea and Japan (and of course, China) be tempted toward military escalation in order to guarantee the uninterrupted supply of raw materials? For mineral-rich, small countries like Malaysia, how do we navigate this new, more treacherous future?
Three Things I am Thinking about Today #8
- Who knew one could make quite a bit of money selling milk from home? As Farm Fresh prepares for its upcoming IPO, it is good to see businesses that are still anchored on the idea that business can actually help people to improve their lives. There has been a lot of skepticism, of late, in the enthusiasm of capitalism to embrace a more stakeholder-oriented stance, but I suppose it all depends on your intention: to truly embrace togetherness and shared prosperity, or to merely employ such rhetoric to mask baser motives of greed and exploitation.
- It is a common cycle throughout the history of innovation and technological growth: a new technology platform arrives on the scene – it could be petroleum as a source of energy, or electricity as a means to power machinery, or the Internet as a means of sharing information – and those most well-placed to gain from the rapid advancement and growing profitability of such technologies begin to gain outsize advantage and eventual domination: the Rockefeller oil trust, General Electric, or Google and Facebook. Eventually, burgeoning profitability and market share leads to outsize influence and power, and dominant players find themselves increasingly tempted to wield monopolistic power in their favour. And then, the backlash begins. In recent days, a whistle-blower has made her voice heard, and there is growing consensus that dominant tech giants like Facebook and Google will need to be reined in. Competition eventually becomes normalised, until the next cresting of a new technology…
- I believe that when historians look back at the politics of the late 2010s, there will be a huge collective sigh of relief that while Trump was certainly an influential and talented demagogue, his own incompetence and lack of discipline made sure that the damage he could actually inflict on America and the world was relatively limited. Could a more capable wannabe-tyrant have done differently? In my mind, highly likely. We are not yet at the endgame of the current epoch of this collective and corrective backlash against the excesses of capitalism and inequality: for that, we need a 21st century FDR to emerge, so that the inchoate demands for better justice and fairness can cohere into a set of much-needed policy reforms that will shape the world anew.
Three Things I am Thinking about Today #7
- There has been a lot of discussion about broadening the tax base in Malaysia, especially since the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, which was eventually abolished by the Pakatan Harapan government. In an age when income inequality is foremost on the minds of policymakers and commentators, it is interesting to see the Malaysian Socialist Party (“PSM”) and the Democratic Action Party (“DAP”) at loggerheads over the idea of a Capital Gains Tax. My take is that policy choices in Malaysia would become much, much clearer on that day when we finally introduce clear rules around transparency of political financing. Then we will see, who exactly is fighting for the people, vs. those who merely talk a good game.
- Being married to Kat Rahmat inevitably means that there will be a lot of conversations around the meaning of Life and Death. In particular, the two of us often have conversations around the fear – nay, terror – of impending death, and how we engage in various convolutions and distractions, to take our eye off the stark reality of permanent departure from this world. This piece is consoling: that even physicists, who we would imagine to be the most rational of the best of us, cannot escape postulations that help us to find peace with the idea of our eventual expiration.
- The Great Resignation is real, and it is coming. As many workers have spent months away from the office, they have had time to evaluate their lives and careers, and many have begun to explore different options for how to live their post-pandemic lives. This article reminds us that it is okay for people to leave, and it is equally as important to pay attention on those who choose to stay. As for me, I look back at my career over the past decade and realise that even though I have technically moved jobs 5 times since 2010, those job moves have actually involved me shuttling back-and-forth between just Pemandu and Ekuinas. I would like to think it is a good sign that I have been able to return back to old stomping grounds, not just once but twice. Loyalty and trust can be hard to build, but they are very powerful currencies in our journey through life.
Three Things I am Thinking about Today #5
- The Government is tabling a bill to raise Malaysia’s statutory debt ceiling from 60% to 65%, in order to fund stimulus measures to help Malaysians get through the pandemic. I think this is timely, and much needed. What is not clear, however, is whether this is a temporary or permanent raising of the debt ceiling (the title of the Bill suggests that this is temporary, but this is not made fully clear), and whether there is a clear plan for Malaysia to bring its debt levels back down to below 60% once the pandemic is truly over. We must not allow emergency measures to become a slippery slope that drives our nation’s finances into further indebtedness, especially after all the losses that we are incurring over the 1MDB looting.
- While the debate in Malaysia’s parliament over raising the debt limit looks to be perfunctory, the United States seems to be spiraling into yet another bout of partisan bickering over its own debt ceiling. Madness? Yes. But this is the blowback that the US political class has purchased for itself when it walked blindly into the morass of the War on Terror, and the disastrous consummation of its flirtation with nativist no-nothingism with the Tea Party that had eventually led to Trump’s presidency. There is always a price to pay when you play with extremism in the pursuit of narrow parochial interests.
- Here’s an interesting and totally expected thing that usually happens when you conflate a succession race with a plan to recover from a pandemic: the politics will almost always get in the way. What is Singapore thinking? Like mentioned in the article, this is not something that would have happened during Lee Kwan Yew’s time. Another chink in the armour, then, for the PAP government under Lee Hsien Loong?
Three Things I am Thinking about Today #4
- Turkey threatens to buy new missile system from Russia: is this the beginning of the end for Turkey’s membership of NATO? And will this lead to even sharper realignment of global geopolitics?
- The third MRT line’s alignment has been finalised and awaiting approval. I hope we do get this 3rd line done: Kuala Lumpur needs to step back from the brink of urban car congestion, and embrace more active modes of mobility. The alternative is unsustainable.
- Like many of my generation, I have pegged a lot of my self-esteem and self-worth to my work. This is a good reminder that there is so much more to living than just what I do for a living.
Budget 2021: A Walk into the Unknown?
As the debate over the 2021 Budget rages on in Parliament, we are faced with a possible outcome that has not been on the table for at least my own lifetime: the likelihood of a Budget Bill that is voted down by Parliament.
Firstly: how likely is this? The Government was clearly anxious enough about the likelihood of this Budget passing through Parliament, that it actually triggered the option of an Emergency (which was thankfully rejected by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong). Instead, the Ruler exhorted all parliamentarians to set aside party affiliations, and lend their support to the Budget Bill, keeping in mind the ongoing economic carnage that has been wreaked by a global pandemic that is raging unabated.
And yet, the Agong’s call has been left unheeded.
Parties on both sides of the aisle – in weighing their own political interests – have made their own demands on the Budget, raising the spectre of a rejected Budget.
On the part of the Government, they have not yet fully given up on the hopes of triggering an Emergency; sprinkled throughout the daily newspapers over the past few days are the comments of various rent-a-quote professors, eager – no doubt – to ingratiate themselves with those in office by recalling their so-called merits of an Emergency that would allow a Budget to sail through unmolested.
The more interesting question is: what happens if the Budget is not passed? The responses have been interesting.
Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul have raised the possibility that civil servants might not get paid if the Budget is not passed. (This is technically correct: a failed Budget Bill could lead to a government shutdown, if the appropriate sums to run the day-to-day operations of the Government cannot be appropriated.
What the Finance Minister has left unsaid, and which DAP leaders have been (almost gleefully) pointing out, is that a failure to pass the Budget Bill will likely, based on Westminster convention, lead to the fall of the Perikatan Nasional government. A new Prime Minister needs to be appointed, and the Government formed by that Prime Minister will need to pass a Budget Bill in Parliament.
It is this grim outlook for the Government that has led many within the Perikatan government to still raise the option (almost longingly) for an Emergency, so that a Budget could be passed without the Government of the day incurring the risk of stepping down.
Personally, I don’t think an Emergency would be likely, or desirable. Could the Government fall? I would give it a 30% probability that something like this could happen. More likely is that some sort of last-minute compromise would be cobbled in order to come to a Budget that enough Parliamentarians would deign to vote for.
The alternative may well be uncharted waters for Malaysian democracy!