Tax is a dirty word ....

To me, of all the filthy words in the various languages in the world, there is no word more filthy than the word "tax". Tax is a means by which the strong exploit the weak. Ever since, human beings became organised into groups of people that became producers of foods and makers of things, there exist also groups of people who rose to become bullies to rob the other groups of the sweat of their efforts. To the former group belong the farmers, carpentars, the traders and so on while the latter groups are the tribal chiefs, the kings, the sultans, and elected officials which form the "government". The latter groups, by threats of incarceration and death have, over thousands of years, successfully bullied their way into getting what they wanted using "laws" that were of their own making.

Thus today, we read that Idris Jala of the PM's Dept saying that the country can improve its revenue collection of RM 10.8 billion by more tax and by RM 2.2 billion in more cost cuttings over the next 5 years. What he said about more tax was not clear, since what ever tax that has been imposed has already been imposed on the people. He may be referring to more efficient ways to tax the people or to introduce the "GST" which he keeps telling us that 143 countries are already having the GST or VAT system, so why not Malaysia. It is as though the GST is a panacea for all the deficit problems in the country.

The trouble is that Malaysia is not sure of when to introduce the GST. If it is introduced now, the ruling party is wary that it may cause such a backlash in the coming election that it, probably, may lose the election outright. The ruling party has learnt a painful lesson in the last election when many voters voted against the ruling party, unwittingly, helping the opposition to win many State and Federal seats. The ruling party has to make sure it stands a good chance of winning before it introduces the GST. To be sure, the opposition party will introduce the GST regardless, and that's why there's not a word of comments from its leaders regarding the GST itself. It's that the ruling party does not want to blame itself later for an election loss caused by an untimely GST introduction.

Reverting back to Idris Jala, he claims that the GST won't burden the poor so much because basic essentials such as rice, foodstuffs, and so on are either exempted from GST or zero rated (in order words, now zero % but may be increased). He went on to say that the payment on GST takes sometime, to wit, 18 months from the date of the GST introduction.

Sosilawati murders ...

It is just nearly a year ago when the nation was shocked to hear about the most gruesome murders in quite a long time. Sosilawati and 3 others were killed, their bodies burnt and their ashes scattered in a river near Banting. The murderers and their accomplices, all Tamil Indians, were apprehended since then. Three or four of the accomplices have been tried and sentenced 6-7 years jail in a magistrate court, which later, changed the sentence to 20 years jail. The others, probably 5 of them, are, only now, being tried in the Shah Alam high court. After the trial, what I am afraid of is that the trial judge might dismiss the case as one that has no prima facie.

There were many, many instances in the past when criminals brought to trial were let go just because the prosecution made mistakes in giving evidence. For instance, a drug peddler would be let off by the trial judge, if the evidence produced i.e. the drugs, differ in weight from the amount that the peddler was caught with. There was also an instance in which an Iranian was tried and let go just because the trial judge was not satisfied with the evidence given which was amphetamine when in fact the drug was ketamine. Another instance was when the killers of a teen boy were allowed to go free just because the witness for the prosecution fled to his home country, China. Come to think, one can take advantage of the peculiar mentality of Malaysian judges, to administer their blinkered sense of justice. If one is brought to trial for, say, killing a person by shooting the victim with a machine gun when it is proved in court that the victim was in fact shot with a pistol, the judge may declare that the prosecution has no prima facie case and let the murderer go scot free. Haa ..Haa..

So with some trepidation, I fear of a similar sense of blinkered justice in the trial of the Sosilawati murderers. There's a battery of lawyers ever ready to defend the murderers. I fear the trial would take an inordinately long time and would go to the appellate court, then the federal court, if in the first instance they are found guilty; by which time, the killers may escape to India and disappear forever. Otherwise, it would end up the way I suspect it would, that is, the case is declared as one that has no prima facie. In the pursuit of blinkered justice, the judge is quite incapable of administrating real justice to the victims and their families.

Update 07/07/2011 Thursday: I thought the trial is about murder. Not one or two but four. It is trial on murders perpetrated by Tamil Indians on innocent Malay businessman and her associates. But today, the line of questioning is about Sosilawati's compromising (whatever that means) pictures supposedly taken in the privacy of her house. The cunning Indian lawyers are attempting to divert the courts attention to eventually blame the victims for being responsible for their own deaths, thereby hoping that it may exonerate the actual perpetrators from the crimes of murder. I hope the Malay judge wouldn't be tempted to conclude that, yeah, because they have committed sins, then they deserve to be killed. Actually, it was revealed in the following day that photographs of Sosilawati were taken in the nude in her bathroom by, of all person, her own driver.

Neymar of Brazil ...

I stayed awake last night to watch the Copa America specifically to watch the new Brazilian team playing against the Venezualan team in a Group B match held in La Plata Argentina. The new "Pele" in the form of Neymar was nowhere comparable with the real Pele, who was 17 then, when he played in the 1958 World Cup against Sweden. Neymar, wearing no 11 jersey, for most of the time, played on the left wing and never seemed to get the ball through to the centre of the field. Not that he was heavily marked but that he seemed to lack the skill to get past the defense. He tended to kick the ball towards his own half, as though that was the only time that he could get past the Venezualan defense. Only once, which was in the 91st minute game, did he show some dribbling brilliance, but by then, he was too late to create an impact. With the exception of Danny Alves of Brazil, all the other Brazilian players played like a bunch of amateurs. It seemed to me that Robinyo could only kick with his right foot when he could easily have scored with his left, with no defender to harass him. The coach was right in replacing him for another striker. The only exciting part of the game was when striker Pato hit the top woodwork. In contrast, Venezuala played the better football to deny the much vaunted Brazilians. The 0-0 result was a source of satisfaction for the Venezuala coach while Brazil deserved a big boo. At the way the Brazilians played, I doubt they can be World Champions come 2014.

After watching the game, my feeling is that Neymar's market value immediately drops. With Argentina struggling for a draw against Bolivia and Brazil playing like a scared bunch of amateurs, I won't stay up late to watch Copa America. I would rather watch the Women World Cup games currently on in Germany. Of course, I had to change my mind and stayed up late to watch the Copa America when Brazil played Paraguay. Robinho was benched while Neymar's market value would drop even farther down because for most of the time he did not contribute and was substituted by the elderly Fred who managed to save Brazil from defeat at the very last minute. The game ended in a 2:2 draw. Paraguay was unlucky not to win.

As I write this, Ecuador is about to play Venezuala in which they lost 0-1 making an unfancied team to top group B. Brazil was later to draw 2-2 with Paraguay. On football again, the latest in the Women World Cup in Germany, Brazil lost to USA in a 5-3 penalty kick. The game was exciting that in spite of playing with 10 women, USA equalised 2-2 at the very last minute from a Wambach header through a beautiful Beckham-like delivery from Ropinoe. Brazil sufferred another woe when, in the under-17 World Cup in Mexico, Uruguay whacked Brazil 3-0.

Update 15/07/2011 Friday: The women World Cup in Germany was a joy to watch. Firstly and paradoxically, the players play in a gentleman like manner. Not for them the rough stuffs, that you often see in the men's leagues, nor the cheating and the diving in the penalty area and the pretenses of being hurt in the course of play. The games were played in a manner that we used to play, a long, long time ago. I think Brazil were unfortunate for being dumped by a 10-"men" USA in a penalty kick play-off. The outstanding US players were Wambach and Heart Solo and, I think, Ropinoe. As for Japan, I believe they are the best team in terms of technical skill and fitness. They were full of running right from the very first minute to the end of the game in which they emerged 3-1 winners over lumbering Sweden. And because of this, I believe that Japan will outplay the USA in the forthcoming final in Frankfurt. It seems to me that all the Japanese players are fit to a T. For my money, they could easily beat the best men's team that Asia can give.

Back to Neymar of Brazil and finally he managed to score 2 easy goals against Ecuador. Brazil just managed to top Group B by goal difference. Mancon made the difference between Brazil winning 4-2 and a draw of or even a loss to Ecuador for Ecuador were a good team.

Update 17/07/2011 Sunday: As I write this, it's 03:50 am in the morning, after having watched the 3rd place pay-off in the Women's World Cup in Germany. Lumbering Sweden with 10 players just managed to scraped through past France for the bronze. The more interesting game will be tonight's Final between USA and Japan. Also this morning, Columbia are playing Peru. The half-time result is a scrappy 0-0 draw.

Update 25/07/2011 Monday: I didn't bother to watch Uruguay beating Paraguay 3-0 in the final of the Copa America.

Abdul Rahman Dahalan ...

I was initially curious about the above person who wrote the article in order enlighten a lot of people particularly one Tamil female lawyer by the name of Ambiga who is currently responsible for organising a demonstration for free and fair elections. When I saw the name in a website called the Malaysian Insider, I thought the writer was someone I knew personally; I was wrong since the person I knew was one Abdul Rahman Mat Dahan and he was never an MP. Anyway, I continued reading the article and became enlightened somewhat, especially on the presence of people on the electoral lists, the process of postal voting and so on.

It never occurred to me that SPR (the election commission) had no power to simply remove the names of dead people from the electoral list even if they knew about the situation. To delete the names, proofs were required, and the proofs should be forthcoming from those in authority, like the Police or from the relatives of the dead people, to wit, the death certificates. But, according to the MP, how many people submit these to the SPR, though they quickly inform the Bank, the Police, the Insurance, even, amusingly, the Loan Sharks !

Can we therefore blame SPR for maintaining the names of dead people in the electoral list ? But then, ought it not for the Police to inform the SPR, because the Police is among the first to be notified of any deaths.

Another interesting light is about the postal voting. Most people are led to believe that postal voting occurs when a group of, say, military personnel or government officials are asked to vote under the watchful eyes of the superiors. The superiors are there to ensure that the voters vote in favour of certain candidates or else, they run the risk of being punished. The truth is that, representatives of political parties are also present to supervise the voting process. The fact that, in most instances, candidates from the party that is in government tend to get more favourable votes than those from the opposition means that the postal voter simply does not favour the opposition candidate. It has nothing to do with unfair postal voting or vote rigging.

Among other things, the MP touches on vote buying like the opposition promising to give land titles, abolishment of quit rents to some villagers, or providing bonus in the millions. Though I cannot accept this as vote buying per se but simply promises made by politicians, the current party in government also made some promises that they prefer to keep silence on as time goes by.

The MP for Kota Belud sounds reasonable in his elucidation on why the chairman of Bersih thinks that elections in Malaysia are far from fair and free. If they are not fair and free, why do we have opposition MPs. If she had been in Germany in the 1940s, she would have been languishing in Sobibor.

Live within your means ...

The Greeks have still not learnt the lessons that they are not as well-off as the French or as the Germans. They think that when they are in the Euro zone they can spend as much as their German or French counterparts. The truth is that the Greeks are relatively poorer. Of course, there are filthy rich Greeks like Onassis and a few others, but generally, the middle class Greeks are no way at par with the middle class Frenchmen or the Germans.

When I was in Athens in 2005, it seems to me that the Greeks rely too much on tourist money. They don't seem to have products made by the Greeks, apart from those souvenir items found in the tourist shops. If suddenly the tourists stop coming, or enter the country in trickle, Greece would be in trouble.

True, now the Greeks have been in trouble since 2008 and Greece would be a bankcrupt nation had it not been for bailouts from France and Germany and IMF. Still, the Greeks persist in protesting against their government's austerity measures. The Greeks have to accept that they ought to spend less now, save more, forego luxuries, and so on. It's no use protesting in the streets to get rid of the present government. Whoever takes over the government, will find themselves in trouble since the problems are not with the people running the government but in the economic system itself and the profligate attitude of the incorrigible Greeks that cause all the economic woes.