The Malaysian Ringgit ...

Why does the MYR keep on weakening against most major and minor currencies. Since last year, I note that the MYR was "strengthening" against the USD. Its not that the MYR organically strengthened, but its because the USD was weakening against all major currencies and the MYR weakened slightly less against the non USD currency - hence the "strengthening effect". This was understandable because US has been bleeding white to finance its two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to maintain its high living standards with money regurgitated from its busy printing presses. Further it spends money borrowed from its major trading partners and repay them with, as Iran says, paper money worth slightly more than a toilet paper.

Yet this toilet paper has increased in value compared to the MYR. With Malaysia having so much money in its forex reserve and with its balance of payment showing high positives year in and year out for the last many years, the MYR has in fact weakened against the Euro, the Pound, the S$, the Yen, the Swiss franc, the Yuan and HK $ and most other currencies, even the baht. Only against the lowly rupiah that the MYR maintains stability. Thailand with its coup and rioting and demostration since about two years ago managed to maintain a higher Baht/RM rate.

To which country can I visit where the MYR can go far. Certainly not to Europe where the MYR appears so small; nor to China or Japan, Korea, the Arab countries, even Singapore or Thailand. I thought maybe in Indonesia that the Malaysian Ringgit can go farther than it can in Malaysia. I am disappointed to find out that in Medan, the price of a 2-bedded room in a 2 star hotel is far more expensive than a similar one in a 3-star hotel in KL. So much for cheap hotels in Indonesia !

A sure sign that the MYR is weakening is inflation which is currently at 8.5 percent. Another sign is the price of property. Where an apartment that cost RM 300,000 some ten years ago is now at RM 3,000,000 and a double-storey terrace house that cost RM 150,000 is now advertised at no less than RM 750,000. It looks as though that, not only the MYR cannot go far in other countries, it cannot go far even in its own country.

I pity my poor uncle who regularly set aside part of his income for his retirement savings only to find out eventually that the accumulated savings become insufficient to buy a low-cost house.

The reason for the weakening of the MYR is maybe due to this. BNM's forex reserve has dropped to USD 122.6 billion from USD 125.1 billion two weeks ago. By any means, the reserve is reasonably high, being 9.6 months of import sustainability, its the short term external debt that has dropped to 4.3 times from a position of about 6.2 since I first blogged.

Apologies not required ...

I don't know why the DPM of Malaysia, Najib Razak, was quick to apologise to the non-Malays, especially those of Chinese and Indian descents, just because an UMNO man, Ahmad Ismail, said that the non-Malays he was referring to were squatters in this country, meaning that they were nothing but illegal immigrants. The leaders of the Chinese and Indian party components, together with the Chinese papers, aggressively demanded that the man retract his remarks and a make formal apology. Did the Malays ever get as much as "I/we am/are sorry" from Karpal Singh when he insulted the Sultan of Perak or the DAP wakil when he insulted the Sultan of Johore or the student who poked fun and insulted the National Anthem in a rap music critical of Malaysia. The student was in fact given favorable publicity by the Star  newspaper showing him holding a Malaysian flag as if to tell us that he was really patriotic after all. Have we forgotten that the Bar Council of Malaysia formally challenged the Malay Privileges when those privileges were cast in stone in the Federal Constitution ?

Why should we Malays apologise profusely when some of us make gaffes that were construed as sensitive to the non-Malays who, now and again, throw insults at us with impunity knowing that they could get away with it. Just read the comments in Malaysia today and other blogs how the Malays are hurled with insulting remarks such as "bodoh", "malas", "pea-brains", "corrupted", and many, many more.

And what did the authorities in Melaka do when they tried to enforce the law on the Chinese pig farmers who blatantly barricaded themselves against being forced to reduce the number of pigs they were rearing. The authorities did nothing and their show of force was largely ignored by the pig farmers. 

Update: 09/09/2008: Ever since the remarks made by Ahmad Ismail, there has been a lot of barbs exchanged between the Malays and the non-Malays. One Chinese leader Kah Chuan goes on to say that the Chinese have sacrificed some 300,000 of them for Malaysia in fighting the Japanese during World War II. Little does he know that the Chinese that fought against the Japanese died for the British and not for the Malays. Two Malay academics put him in a proper historical perspective. The Chinese that came to Peninsular Malaysia (then Malaya) were brought to this country to serve the British who were ruling the country. They did not come here over a period of time in transmigration from China like the Chinese Babas did and who settled mostly in Melaka and adopted the local culture. Nope, they were imported here in droves to work in the British tin mines, plantations, trading depots, and administration centres to get away from the poverty, oppression, starvation, that existed in China. The British liked them because they were obedient, tirelessly hardworking, and smart and therefore were excellent workers. The British never liked the Malay natives for their aversion to hard work, for why should they, since they were not starving and foods were plentiful on their lands.

Thus when the Japanese drove the British out of Malaya, they did not fight against the Malay natives and their Sultans but against those that were seen as British sympathisers who were naturally and mostly Chinese. The Japanese of course treated the Chinese as enemies rather than the local Malays especially when Japan then was also at war with China which they had conquered. The Chinese formed the MPAJA (the Malayan People Anti-Japanese Army) and retreated to the jungle fastness to fight the Japanese in a guerilla warfare. Some 300,000 Chinese became casualties in the warfare. The British also had its own guerilla force called Force 136 to fight the Japanese. It was probably about this time that the British made a pact with the Chinese , verbally or otherwise, of citizenship, to help the British defeat the Japanese. Ultimately, the British never got round to defeating the Japanese directly in Malaya, but rather it was the Americas who forced Japan's surrender.

The claim by one of the MCA's leaders that the Chinese had greatly sacrificed 300,000 lives for the country is simply hogwash. Its like saying that the Jews sacrificed 6,000,000 of their kind to save Europe.