GUAN ENG FOR PM

DAP COMES OUT INTO THE OPEN

At last we here at this blog get to respond to Lim Guan Eng and his party the DAP in opposition. The DAP hope to be government after 5 May 2013 and are quite hopeful. They have now outlined their reasons as to why Malaysia “Deserves Better” and we accordingly respond to each of their statements in this regard.

The coloured responses below are ours in response to Lim Guan Eng’s “Open letter” being circulated by him in an intensive disinformation campaign on the eve of the 13^th general elections via the internet by email.

GUAN ENG’S OPEN LETTER TO MALAYSIANS

Open Letter By DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng To All Malaysian Voters

Following The Dissolution Of Parliament To Make Way For The 13th General Elections:

To All Malaysians Who Believe That Malaysia Deserves Better

As we count down towards this ground-breaking 13th General Election, you can play a significant role in changing the course of our country’s history. By simply daring to change, you bring a brighter future for a Malaysia free from fear, free from ignorance and free from corruption.

A great aspirational statement from Lim Guan Eng leader of the DAP party in opposition. It is what all decent and civilized people should aspire to.

 Malaysia Deserves Better!

This historic general election will be about the economy and which party has the correct policies, ideas, ideals and principles to make our livelihood better.

What is meant by our livelihood? Is there a collective livelihood? If so what is it Guan Eng?  More importantly what costed policies do the Pakatan and DAP have which would make Malaysia better off economically and displace the policies they call ‘corrupt’ which has brought Malaysia the prosperity of the past 4 decades?

So the Economist, the UN, the CIA’s economic unit and the British, Australian and Japanese are all wrong in their assumptions that Malaysia’s economy is ranked as one of the better managed and more stable in the world? Malaysia is a country that is and has been for some time now the envy of many European nations. Those European nations are now facing an irreversible economic decline and bankruptcy.

Those nations in decline include Britain (without the Great) and France both of who shamelessly support the DAP’s dirty Bersih campaigns by funding their sinister NGO’s. Is Guan Eng suggesting that Malaysia now follow the path and the bankrupt policies of Europe, a continent in decline?

Malaysia is caught in a middle-income trap. Many find it hard to believe that in 1966 Malaysia’s GDP per capita of USD350 was ahead of South Korea’s USD130. Almost fifty years later, Malaysia has improved to USD9,977 whilst South Korea jumped ahead of Malaysia to USD22,424.

The forces of economic convergence are powerful, but not omnipotent or invincible. Poorer countries often grow faster than richer ones. This is largely because imitation is less costly than innovation.

This assumption does not necessarily  conclude that every poor country of say 50 years ago has caught up, as a recent  study by the Economist  has shown . That study by the Economist plotted the income per capita (adjusted for purchasing power) of each of a group of poor countries relative to that of the USA in 1960 and in 2008. That same study was also featured in the World Bank’s China 2030 report.

If each of the countries in that study had caught up with the US, they would all be found to have been on parity at least with the USA . However the truth is this. Most countries in that study (except the USA) that were middle income in 1960 remained  in the middle income trap in 2008. The study took in at least 25 countries.

Only 13 of the countries in that study escaped this middle-income trap, becoming high-income economies in 2008.

One of these success stories in this study, was Greece. (The Economist). Now therein lies the wisdom of Guan Eng’s “escaping the middle income trap” theory.

Does Malaysia need to go down the path of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece? If Guan Eng and Anwar get in Malaysia will.

We note Guan Eng studied economics at Monash University, a University whose vice chancellor was forced out of office in the 1990’s (Professor Robinson) for the offence of plagiarism..

Since March 2008, a 2-party system gives us both a choice but also make our choices count. Countries that were once less developed than us like South Korea and Taiwan have transformed into high-income economies while we remain stuck in the middle-income trap.

At least Malaysia has not regressed. It is not caught up in the poverty trap of the 1960’s when Guan Eng imagines Malaysia was a “wealthier state” than Korea and Taiwan. And that’s more significant an observation Guan Eng chooses to avoid recognition of.

Both South Korea and Taiwan have since the 1950’s been the recipient of large infusions of funds and aid from the USA. The reasons for this being in the case of Korea (south Korea) what you witness a revival of now. The threat of communist expansion from the North and China.

The threat of China in all its forms including Chinese enclaves in South East Asia has not abated. It is merely tolerated. Their economies are made up of different components as those of Malaysia’s. Taiwan’s budgets like that of Israel’s is heavily underwritten by the US. It is unable to singularly fund its own defence budget.

Why do people think the US is spending hundreds of billions of dollars setting up bases in the Philippines and Australia having jettisoned its age old ally Pakistan in favour of India for? is it to contain a Malay threat? No of course not. it is the Chinese all over again.And with the Guan Eng DAP mentality is it any wonder? There is a re alignment of world realities and the Chinese are not part of it.

Taiwan also was for a very long time was a pirate state that  did not conform to international law. It was not recognized by the world community and as a consequence it thrived by being a black market state with an authoritarian regime killing its political opponents. It profited from theft of intellectual property, piracy and counterfeiting goods. Penang too has for  along time under the Chinese been a haven for pirated and counterfeit goods. Is Guan Eng suggesting we continue down that path of “economic prosperity”?

Of course much has changed since the 1950’s and 1960’ which Guan Eng refuses to concede. His argument above in this regard is redundant because Malaysia did not have the luxury of playing against the rules like Taiwan did. Malaysia plays by the rules. It has always been a democracy. South Korea and Taiwan have only recently over the past decade or two embraced the concept of democratic government even so they struggle to come to grips with it.

Economics is not simply about making money. It is about making choices with the scarce resources we have. Malaysia has managed it well especially under the Barisan its allies the MCA and in particular Dr. Mahathir Mohammed,  a point you admit to in a very unsubtle way in your last claim here.

 In 1963, Malaysians were richer than the Koreans and Taiwanese, with a per capita income of 13.6% relative to US income, whereas Korea and Taiwan per capita incomes were both lower at 10.7% and 12.6% respectively. 50 years later today, Malaysia is way behind being only half as rich as Korea and Taiwan.

THE MYTH OF THE GUAN ENG’S  TAIWAN KOREA COMPARISON EXPLAINED

The gap is as Guan Eng correctly states in the above paragraph “relative”. Korea (south) was recovering from a long and devastating war that divided the nation in two. It could not in its wildest dreams have been rich by any standards then. Any prosperity it had and it has today will be squandered by its massive military budget as the current situations there demonstrates. 

Malaysia’s population has more than doubled since then. What about the populations of Taiwan and South Korea, are these considered in your relative comparisons? Taiwan reaped billions from making fake consumer goods under the protection of the US. The excuse being it was an anti communist against China. South Korea received billions in foreign AID  (mainly US military related).

The US would fudge any figure so as not to demonstrate the devastating effects of the war in these places. If it did the communists would have succeeded in their propaganda. Korea is still struggling. And it will so till the military and political problem with the North is resolved.

COMPARING APPLES WITH APPLES

The figures Guan Eng provide although not totally correct are not critical. But he must be prepared to explain them not in terms of 4 numbor eko types of calculations. The world was a different place in 1963. China and the former Soviet nations were not part of the international economy then. India and Africa, South America and certain other nations could not participate meaningfully in the international economy because they had only recently emerged from colonial domination and were finding their feet.

Demand for certain goods and services which give some countries an economic advantage over others did not exist then. Like electronics and computers.

Malaysia had lots of rubber and oil palm plantations then owned by the British till Dr. Mahathir encouraged Malaysian to take them over. Then rubber lost its value in the world market. Synthetics took over. The science was not there to foresee investments in alternatives. 

Being richer then meant having some running water and not having large chunks of the population running around naked and suffering malnutrition and going to a toilet that was not the bush.

Applying Guan Eng’s weak arguments one could say the New Zealanders are wealthier than the Saudis which is not altogether incorrect.

But what makes that difference? Are they two similar countries with similar political, cultural and physical characteristics, needs, resources and objectives?

Monash university economics degree with a Chinese slant to it at work here

There are 3 critical success factors namely a functioning democracy, fighting corruption and building human talents. Bad governments that fail to deliver are replaced through democratic elections by good governments resulting in progressive reforms and improvements. Corrupt leaders are replaced by those with integrity. And the country’s prosperity is underpinned by building and retraining human talent.

3 CRITICAL FACTORS CORRUPTION DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES AND HUMAN TALENTS EXPLAINED

THE MYTH OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND PROSPERITY

Singapore which you and your father and dare I say most DAPsters admire have not had democratic government for over 4 decades and they are doing incredibly well.

South Korea you mentioned like Taiwan only recently has embraced a limited form of democracy and look at the result. Would you live in South Korea today for all the tea in China? Neither Taiwan, China, the US or Korea can in any way demonstrate the absence of corruption in their midst. It matters a lot what you consider corruption.

Singaporeans have been voting with their feet for a long time now.38% of that island state’s citizens  have migrated to be replaced by immigrants from China, Taiwan, Korea (like Lorraine Han’s father-CNBC reporter), Indonesia, India and other countries. What’s your DAP idea of democracy and talent?

CORRUPTION AND PROSPERITY

Guan Eng is right. Corrupt leaders are eventually replaced with people of integrity. That’s why Malaysia got rid of Tengku Abdul Rahman and replaced him eventually with Dr. Mahathir. What do you term corruption? The Malaysian Bar or the DAP who excise Indians and Malays from its ranks?  That too is corruption. Corruption in its classic definition is moral turpitude and not affirmative action or graft.

Graft is the least form of corruption. The recipient of a bribe accepts a bribe often out of necessity. The giver like your many Chinese towkays corrupt the system by giving it, putting temptation in the way of the weak where merit then becomes a casualty of the bad government you create.

In Singapore the government’s sovereign fund Tamasek lost $65 Billion in the GFC between 2007-2009. That loss surely cannot be blamed on “corruption” could it? Why? because in Singapore it was the Chinese, which you Guan Eng and your father admire so much who were responsible for the bad investments made by Tamasek.

Were Malays or the Barisan government responsible for that financial disaster in Tamasek? Strangely Guan Eng omits any mention  of the failures of a government he and his father worship and often refer to as their role model for an alternative Malaysia.

TALENT AND TALENT BUILDING

What talents do the Americans who support you have other than the talents of migrants like our children (children of migrants themselves) contribute to there? At last count over 30% of NASA were of south Indian extraction. That position has changed. People move on as the does any economy.

You can try to build and retain good talent and the Barisan has done that including building the talents of Guan Eng, Anwar Ibrahim, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Nurrul Anwar. Each of these people are recipients of Barisan programmes, the NEP for the Anwar family, and the breaking down of barriers so that as Malays they would not be discriminated by the others anymore. It worked.

In the 1960’s, the majority of Malays were peons, drivers, servants and lowly paid workers. Today they manage large corporations, are doctors, engineers, lawyers and other professionals which is something you in the DAP and the Chinese in general can’t stand to see. So you attribute their progress to corruption and the exit of migrant Chinese and Indians to bad government?

The greatest gift that a good government can bestow to our future generation is not cash handouts but knowledge, education, a just system with integrity and equal opportunity. Only then can we live with dignity and our young live better than us.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND HAND OUTS AS GOOD ECONOMIC POLICY

Cash handouts certainly help. Scholarships to Malays (the majority) who were denied these before and immediately after independence have managed to bridge the gap with the NEP. There is more work to be done.

The Chinese like Guan Eng who go abroad from Malaysia certainly do not turn out to be unrecognized Einsteins. They too are recipients of cash handouts but their handouts come from foreigners wanting to destabilise Malaysia.

Affirmative action is alive and well in the US, Australia, India, China, New Zealand, the UK and elsewhere. There the people do not complain like the Chinese in Malaysia do.  They are civilized enough to understand its significance in addressing certain social and economic imbalances in society to create a more level playing field. It is called positive discrimination. But it is not like what you have in Singapore the DAP’s role model.

In Singapore  as an exception to the above rule, when the Indians and Malays began to do well and prove themselves through competition there, Lee Kuan Yew made Mandarin the unofficial national language to keep the non Chinese a step behind the Chinese. Keeping the NEP alive is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Even India has adopted the “dole” of paying social security model to its below the bread line citizens. Cash handouts where it matters.

India’s runs into hundreds of millions of recipients. And guess what? They are doing well as a nation. Better than Greece, Spain, Italy Portugal and Ireland. Maybe not cleaner in appearance but certainly better economically and that’s what matters.

 Malaysia Deserves Better.

In contrast to these two countries, Malaysia is No.1 in the world in terms of illegal capital flight per capita, with a loss of RM 32,000 for every Malaysian, which is more than even China with a loss of RM6,400 per capita during the same period of time. No wonder then, that our national debt has doubled from RM267 billion in 2007 to over RM502 billion today, five years later.

THE HISTORY OF RECENT FLIGHT CAPITAL AS A WEAPON OF DESTABILIZATION

Much of the flight capital of south east Asia is from the  Chinese running away with their untaxed hoarding of foreign exchange and black money.

Singapore has put clamps on them and the practice.  In Indonesia the Chinese had the US to help the Lim Soe Liems and the Sutanto’s  to park their ill gotten gains pillaged from Indonesia’s treasuries and banks during the Suharto era in Singapore banks and treasury notes.

The same with the Chinese from Myanmar like the late Lo Hsin Han the opium and heroin warlord. Lee Kuan Yew hanged his mules in Changi jail whilst banking his drug money in his state’s banks (Helen Vatsikopolous Dateline SBS TV 2003)

To top it off, Guan Eng claims Malaysia has been running a budget deficit for 15 years in a row.

The last time Malaysia recorded a surplus he says was “when Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was Deputy Prime Minister. It is imperative that he be elected as Prime Minister to put Malaysia back in the black.”

You can fool some of the people some of the time. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Malaysia has run surpluses more than you give it credit for. Remember what I said earlier about your economics degree from Monash? Perhaps that’s where the problem lies and your future and Penang’s is not looking good by the minute.

Remarkably you say is Malaysia did enjoy a surplus when Datuk Seri Anwar was Deputy Prime Minister. What you fail to say is that a country is not led by its Deputy Prime Minister. The country is run by its government led by its Prime Minister who during Anwar’s time as Deputy prime Minster, when there were surpluses, was Dr. Mahathir. (Hard to swallow?).

 Anwar presided over the failure of most of Malaysia’s non-banking financial institutions like the insurance sector in the early 1990’s when he was minister for finance. You fail to say that. Remember the Mercantile Insurance scam run by the Chinese taxi drivers and insurance agents in the Selangor area issueing cover notes running into over 2 Billion MYR? Or have you conveniently forgotten that? Anwar was finance minister then.

By learning from South Korea’s three critical success factors, we can arrest Malaysia’s graceful decline. Pakatan Rakyat has proven that we can run a clean, accountable and transparent state governments. We have overturned deficits into surpluses, reduced our state debts, increased our assets and reserves, and managed to save billions of public funds through open competitive tenders. More importantly, we have channelled our savings to the people through our people-centric social programmes. With your help and support, we can do the same for Malaysia.

CORRUPTION, TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT, BILLION DOLLAR TYPOS AND GOVERNMENT SURPLUSES

Identify the corruption  Guan Eng you  say of others which has plagued government and the country. And we will be happy to fund any legal action against individuals or institutions where there is evidence to support. Identify the clean smooth government any of your states run.

But what about the $360 million investment by Penang’s deputy chief minister in  a technology park in Wuhan China? No accountability no available report in the investment using public funds no explanation not even to parliament. Is this not like the unlawful slush funds given to Bersih by the Selangor state government to Ambiga to overthrow a duly elected government? Corruption did you say Guan Eng?

What about the “oversight or typo” of several billions of dollars of government money thrown like so much pig feed into a Chinese run tunnelling project? Again is that the product of a Monash University economics degree?

And what socio economic programmes do we refer to here? Driving out Indian squatters, selling Malay land as if it belongs by natural rights to the Chinese?

There is no compulsion on any government  to produce surpluses. The primary objective of government is to balance the budget. It is the pursuit of naked profit like naked surpluses that has brought the west to its knees.

The dead Margaret Thatcher did that as did her US counterpart Ronald Reagan. Neither were motivated by balance or long term prosperity. They encouraged “spend spend spend” economics to look good whilst putting the knife to social, welfare, education and health funding. That’s how they secured their surpluses. Everything was privatized.

Today Britons are asking for Thatcher’s funeral to be privatized and not burden the state with the $11million pounds it is likely to cost the state.  And why not? Malaysia deserves better indeed.

Malaysia Deserves Better!

I also wish to assure you that policies which will benefit the people will not bankrupt our country – only corruption will. Our promises in our Pakatan Rakyat Manifesto amounting to RM46 billion can easily be funded by an “anti-corruption dividend” of 25% from the RM206 billion worth of annual government procurements and projects. 25% amounts to RM51 billion in savings that we can potentially reap, which is more than enough to pay for our promises.

Really and where is the costing for your dream? Reigning in Corruption means taking back valuable licenses in banking, mining, gaming, land development and other public supply profit centres to be auctioned properly to the public and to a meritorious bidder in the Gaming licenses given to Genting’s Lim Goh Tong by Tengku Abdul Rahman.

Reining corruption also mean taking the sugar monopolies from Robert Kuok again a “gift” to the man and his brothers and not the result of a competitive public tender with merit being a casualty again. Reining corruption will also mean bringing Vincent Tan’s empire to heel, the Yeoh Tiong Lay empire under scrutiny, the Tiongs and Wongs of Sarawak whose empires were built on “gifts” (Graft and bribery) against what should have been competitive bidding processes.

If you are game enough to do it we have a list aided by good competent intelligence you will not be able to find if it were stuffed down your mouth. But you have to be serious. Or is your best comeback that we are racist?

Let us move forward to an international and intelligent state – one that educates and nurtures talent; one that promotes and rewards diligence, expertise and entrepreneurship; one that is liveable by being clean, green, safe and healthy; and one that practices integrity, justice and people-centric governance.

An intelligent state does not sound like what you are promising here. You are speaking of a Chinese dominated state like Lee Kuan Yew created in Singapore after promising he would create a meritocracy. A state where any semblance of the democratic process has been crushed by Kuomintang thugs.

Once bitten twice shy. But there are thumby’s and Miriam Mokhtars around and you can have them. As for the rest of us 5 May will be the day you and your Chinese chauvinists will be crushed. Malaysia deserves better. Of course it does. Better does not mean DAP or Pakatan.

Malaysia Deserves Better.

The only progress is change. Only when you have the courage to change, then can you live with dignity. The time has come for us to connect with each other as Malaysian brothers and sisters.

Guatama Buddha once said “Change comes not because of you but inspite of you”. The Chinese have no brothers and sisters unless there is trouble.

After the May 13 riots of 1969 the Chinese were so readily embracing the Indians calling them “Aneh” (older brother). As soon as they found their feet and gained the economic advantage bribing the public service to the hilt, they dislodged the Tamils from rubber plantations sending them to the streets and slums, engaging them as their thugs and enforcers inciting racial divisions between them and the Malays.

That’s okay once twice but not anymore. The DAP and Guan Eng’s demolitions of their homes and temples in order to allow towkays to build ugly terraces and high rises for speculative purpose’s in pursuit of a naked profit will not go down well now. Selangor is a prime example of the opposition’s greed and incompetence.

You do not share you do not care unless your “brothers and sisters are Chinese” jaundiced and slanted as your policies.

Where your problems be it Malay, Chinese Indian, Kadazan or Iban are our problems. Where your leaders, are our leaders. And where your children, are also our children. And where your hopes are our aspirations.

YOU THE DAP THE PAKATAN THE CHINESE CHAUVANISTS ARE OUR COLLECTIVE PROBLEM.

The forests cut down by the Tiongs and the Wongs in east Malaysia are not the problem of the BN. These are Chinese towkays bribing their way into obscene profits. Yeoh Tiong Lay goes to Church on Sundays but rapes the forests and funds NGO’s who supposedly care for the Orang Asli, Kadazans and Ibans all of who have been driven to an urban jungle planned by DAP and their allies where they can be exploited by the Guan Eng’s of this world.

We do not want to fear the government but the government to fear us. Join us in giving hope to you and the young.

We have no reason to fear the government. For the reasons given above we have every reason to fear and loathe you, the DAP and the exclusivity of the Chinese. Racist???

Let us connect with each other so that we can face the challenges of the future together. In preparing for the future, let us not let BN steal our children’s future as they have stolen ours for the last 56 years. Ini kali lah!

Where were you these 56 years that you see it so necessary to “connect with us now”? Go Away. You want power at all costs. Sorry you must be able to prove your worth with the proofs of your assertions and not by repeating Lee Kuan Yews and the  Kuomintang and Chin Peng’s lies of all those years ago. You want government try harder as the opposition first.

Malaysia Deserves Better. Malaysia deserves better than another Chinese enclave in South East Asia. One Singapore is one too many

Sincerely,

Lim Guan Eng
DAP Secretary-General