Disgusting ...

I am getting disgusted with those people that got educated overseas and refused to come back to Malaysia to work. Some estimates that the number is anywhere between 700,000 and a million. More than 50 % of these are working in Singapore while Australia, Britain, and even USA take the other 50%. They are mostly people of the Chinese race. It's not so much as the fact that these Malaysian migrant workers that I am disgusted with per se, it's when they say that their excuse for not coming back was because they perceive that the Malaysian government is discriminatory and that they are being marginalised as the ultimate kiasu Lee Kuan Yew puts it.

The truth of the matter is that the income you get is much higher than what you get in your country. For instance, if you land a job in UK that pays GBP 5,000 or in USA that pays USD 5,000, who wants to work in Malaysia if the job pays you RM 5,000. There, new cars are cheap, and used cars are even cheaper. Being a migrant worker, one doesn't have to keep up with the Joneses as you would here. Food, clothing, and basic essentials are cheap. Only petrol perhaps are more expensive than in Malaysia; but then the low cost of car ownership would be more than adequate to compensate for the price of petrol. The same thing is for the pay in Singapore. If one gets S$ 5,000, one is considerably better off than if one gets RM 5,000 in Johor Baharu. Only in Singapore that cars, houses, basic essentials cost more than in Malaysia, but only slightly more and one can live in Johore but work in Singapore. So those Chinamen who complaint incessantly that they cannot find well-paying jobs in Malaysia because they are being "marginalised" according to Lee Kuan Yew, are merely giving excuses for not wanting to come back to Malaysia. To this type of so-called Malaysians, I urge the Malaysian government to permanently stop them from coming back. Let them stay and live in countries where they reckon the grass is greener.

It is a typical trait of the Chinese people to be never satisfied. At one time, their impoverished grandfathers left China to work in Malaysia. Then later, their prosperous grandsons are leaving Malaysia to work in Australia on the excuse that they are being marginalised. Ultimately, the grandsons of the grandsons are leaving Australia for Canada.

Violence is for the incompetents ...

In an epigram linked to one Isaac Asimov, his fiction character by the name of Salvor Hardin is fond of saying "violence is the last resort of the incompetents". A leader who is unable to resolve problems amicably by negotiations, or discussions, or simply by talks, but resort to resolving his problems by violence is simply incompetent.

Thus we have 2 Muslim women in Aceh Sumatra who were recently caned in public for selling food during the month of Ramadan and lately a Muslim man in Malaysia was caned for drinking beer in a pub. Though the Talibans in Afghanistan are fond of meteing out corporal punishments on Muslim wrongdoers, I thought we Malaysians are civilised enough not to resort to violence when there are adequate laws to deal with such wrongdoers if in fact the 3 persons just mentioned were doing something heinously wrong. We are simply emulating those Christians of past centuries who burnt witches at the stakes, conduct inquisition, and other violent acts just because those unfortunates didn't see eye-to-eye with the systems.

Those PTPTN borrowers ...

During those days when my uncle was doing business in the East Coast, he has learnt a very important lesson. The lesson is never to grant credit to Malay businessmen. He has learnt to his great regret and disappointment that, in his dealings with Malay businessmen, not a single one of them ever paid money owed to his company. Now this PTPTN is a government agency that provides loans for higher studies to students most of whom are Malays. One report mentioned that out of the RM 23 billion given out as loans, only RM 1.8 billion had been paid back. Not that the loan recipients are broke, most of them are working, some even becoming directors of companies. They have money to buy houses and cars, look after their own families, go on overseas trips and so on and yet they don't see it fit to repay their loans.

Poor PTPTN. It has been making all sorts of attempts to recover the loans over the years only to achieve a success rate of 9% recovery. PTPTN has thus a "bad debt" position of 91% and if this is an ongoing business concern, auditors would strongly recommend that the bad debt is written off rendering the company into a loss situation that could easily lead to insolvency.

Not paying back what you owe people seems to be a weakness in the Malay race, a flaw in the Malay character. I know it because I am a Malay too. On a personal basis, I have relatives that borrow money from me but they seem to have "forgotten" to pay back. If I persist in requesting for the money borrowed, these relatives would say that the amount borrowed is small, that they can pay me back anytime. If I continue persisting, these borrowers get angry saying all sorts of things making me the bad guy and worse they tell my other relatives that I am not the helpful kind. If my relatives are poor and eking out a living, I don't have the heart to ask them back the money; but they are well off and could easily have paid what they owe me.

After several bad experience, especially with my relatives, the best thing to do is to avoid them.

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I am lost in the jungle of political personalities ..

This particular piece of blog is merely my way of keeping track of political or civilian personalities whose names are invariably mentioned in the local papers and sometimes these people create controversies. I am not talking about well-known personalities such as our past Prime Ministers or Ministers or politicians in the "opposition" such as Lim Kit Siang, Nik Aziz, Lim Guan Eng, Karpal Singh and so on who are already well known and need no reminder. It's a sort of Who's Who.

As a start, I begin with Dr Ahmad Nizar , a PAS ADUN who became a Mentri Besar of Perak for a short time. Well-known to be conversant in Mandarin and several other languages, he was unceremoniously booted out of office when 3 of his ADUNs left the coalition that formed the Perak State government in 2009/2010. Some say he has no guts to handle the DAP. In his place was Dr. Zambry Abdul Kadir, an ADUN from the BN. Rosmah Mansor, though not a politician, happens to be the wife of the current Prime Minister. Known for her penchant to be in the limelight, she longs to be referred to as the First Lady when clearly she does not deserve to be called as such. In countries with monarchs, wives of the chief executives are not referred to as the first ladies. They are simply the wives of the chief executives.

A person by the name of Zulkifly Mat Nor, who was once head of the ACA, has been accused of being corrupt and immoral. Funny, the custodian of the anti-corruption agency, is himself being corrupt - accused as a person living beyond his means and who is wont to go on monthly overseas trips. The chap who accuses him is Mohammad Ramli Manan who is himself an ACA officer. I got this from RPK's MT on 28/09/2010 wherein the accuser wrote to one ShagulHamid (?) when Abdullah Badawi was then the PM of Malaysia. I don't know why it appears now. Further internet checks on Zulkifly Mat Nor revealed that he and another person have been cleared by the Attorney-General with no further action to be taken against him or the other person.

Some newspapers are replete with stories of the nominations for PKR's deputy president. The 2 candidates are Azmin Ali, a PKR, stalwart and Zaid Ibrahim, a well-to-do lawyer who was once a deputy minister. There is only one position for the post.