There is a English idiom “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
Perhaps the best illustration of this idiom is the ERL to KLIA. When KLIA was official launched in 1998., an express rail link was built to link KL sentral and KLIA.
There is of course nothing wrong to have this link. I have travelled on this train once, and it costs about RM 35, which is cheaper than hailing an airport taxi. It is also fast and takes about 28 minutes to reach Sentral from KLIA.
The only thing wrong is that even for those not using the service , they are paying RM5 towards this , everytime they take an international flight.
This is reported in Malaysianinsider today, which quoted the Trasport minister as saying that Malaysia Airport Holdings Berhad had to compensate for the poor sale of the ERL.
Worse, even those travellers who do not use the KLIA but travel on Air asia using the LCCT are paying the same amount.
There are several things wrong in this:
1. Why wasn’t a proper feasibility study conducted before this ERL was built ? Granted that this project involved a huge amount of capital, and few companies might want to be involved, but surely if a feasibilty studies showed that it is not profitable, this project can be shelved till a time when the traffic volume in KLIA is sufficient to sustain this. We must not wear a hat that is too big for our head.
If it is a case of other-people-have-rail- link and so we must have it, then why stop at a rail link? Why not start a helicopter ferry service between KL and KLIA?
2. Why must those budget travellers be milked to pay for this? Since this budget travellers go to LCCT which is not serviced by ERL, why must they pay RM5 for this? FOr those early bird budget travellers, RM 5 can get them to Bali etc.
This is a clear case of robbing Peter to pay Francis Paul.
3. Why are air travellers who do not use this ERL service not told about having to pay RM5 even if they do not use it? Where is the trasparency?
4. Why are the concession agreement so lopsided that compensation needs to be paid for poor sale?
Malaysians are like the proverbial Peter in so many occasions…. Tolls, electricity, water, … etc while the Francises Pauls are laughing all the way to the bank.
Dr. Hsu's forum 
Feb 25, 2009 @ 12:57:05
The “Francis-Paul” character is one of the biggest rentiers in the country. These well-connected rentiers (they don’t qualify as real businessmen) grow fat on guaranteed profits, paid by the people.
The economic theory of profit is that its a reward to the person/corporation for taking business risks. When profit becomes guaranteed, with taxpayers and users paying for any shortfall in income, there is no more risk and I don’t call it a business any more. Its daylight robbery.
Toll highways, Independent Power Producers, ERL etc, etc. Malaysia is full of very rich daylight robbers.
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 13:09:31
Dr Hsu. Good One.
The one behind the robbing peter and pay francis (canceled) paul is projected as religious (born again christian) with sound and moral character. dont understand how one can be of morality and be a pirate at at the same time.
maybe cilipadi can explain.
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 13:52:15
that’s only the top of a lot of other dubious issues with ERL! fundamental question should be why does ERL have not enough passengers?
1. their prize is not very competitive! if you don’t travel alone taking a taxi is cheaper (or at least the same, given that a KLIA-KL taxi ride is around RM70)
2. ERL travelers subsidy the KL sentral – putrajaya commuters! if you buy a ticket KL sentral – putrajaya (RM9.50) and a putrajaya – KLIA (RM6.20), you get the KLIA express ride for RM15.70 – more than 50% cheaper than RM35 ticket with only 5min more travel time!
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 14:05:07
Dear Dr Hsu, thanks for this. Now we know why this co proposed for a monorail proj in JB – easy money!
Dear KLM, i agreed with you on the owner of this co. What a total let down.
While we ‘ikat perut’, this big co is having a shopping spree in SG buying props and cos – using our hard-earned money.
I just got my payslip today and noticed that my tax deducted from my salary is higher than previous month. Shish…i’d be happy if more GH are builts, more good schools to eduate our children, but to subsidise things that are only beneficial to the high class ppl … OMG, i feel cheated.
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 14:08:58
ordell,
thanks for letting me know that there is such a service which costs only 15.70.
Next time , if travel alone, will try to use it.
…………………………..
Fisha,
your deduction will definitely be used to subsudise the rich.
I see my tax deduction increase, too. According to my accountant, the tax people always assume that every year, the earning increases. They don’t take into account the present recession and so on…..
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 14:26:04
klm,
When I first landed in Malaysia, people told me, in Malaysia, you need to “know who” instead of “know how” to be a successful businessman.
I explained before, morality is a must when doing whatever thing in whatever field. Those smart ‘Francis’ don’t agree, what more can I say?
An immoral person can turn into a moral one especially after making their bucks on immoral means. A pirate can turn into a mercenary, possible.
I don’t care one labelled himself or herself as original Christian or born again Christian, or Muslim or Buddhist or whatever. Good deeds are what matter, not what you branded yourselves.
Francis makan cili, Peter rasa pedas.
(robbing Peter to pay Paul, I prefer using Francis to Paul)
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 14:35:43
It should be “Robbing Ahmads, Ah Kows & Arumugams to pay Matdir Abdullah, Francis and Samy ” !
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 15:27:41
I just thought of why it is better not to have too many passengers on the ERL. If you are paid 5 RM for every passenger checking in KLIA.
25m passenger = 125M a year for ERL
By keeping the passenger load to the already sunken capacity, ERL can get income from increase KLIA capacity without new investment.
ERL do not need to promote aggressively to sell its capacity. Maybe that is the reason why ERL is not spending much money on promotion.
This is a fantastic business plan.
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 15:48:04
wow KLM,
I have never thought of that!
Indeed it is . Why you need to go and advertise when so much money is already in your pocket.
It is even better than PLUS, since passenger load will increase year on year, and this thing is so secretive , unlike the Plus toll hike which has to be made known.
Now I know why people want to be in the good book of MM.
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 16:41:17
Once a thief always a thief. That’s all I have to say about this!
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 16:56:43
Source…
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/print/175038/Tomgram%253A%2520%2520Michael%2520Klare%252C%2520A%2520Pandemic%2520of%2520Economic%2520Violence
Tomgram: Michael Klare, A Pandemic of Economic Violence
Islands, it’s well known, are more vulnerable to species extinctions than continents. Could the same be true with economic extinctions? After all, as Rebecca Solnit wrote at this site, the small North Atlantic island of Iceland (pop. 320,000) went bust first in this ongoing, roiling economic crisis. Its economy had been riding high on speculative funny money for years when, in little more than a week in October, all three of its major banks cratered and the country’s currency essentially ceased to have value. Not long after, Icelanders hit the streets of their capital, Reykjavik, launching protests, which have yet to end. Soon after, the government fell.
Just this Saturday, Ireland, another suddenly shaky island, whose economy had been riding high on funny money, saw mass protest in the streets of its capital. As the British Times described the scene: “For two hours yesterday Dublin’s O’Connell Street was a swollen river of anger as 100,000 people marched in protest at the government’s handling of the financial crisis.” At least one protestor carried a sign warning of “a lesson learnt from Iceland.” And in this climate of unrest that threatens to flood islands with “swollen rivers of anger,” the British police are now bracing for the worst — a possible “‘summer of rage’ with mass protests over the economic crisis that could mar Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s G20 summit in London in April.” We’re talking here about a formerly prosperous isle that is now inspiring headlines like “Is The U.K. Another Iceland?” and whose capital has been dubbed by some “Reykjavik on the Thames.”
But mainlands, as Michael Klare, author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, tells us in his latest TomDispatch post, haven’t exactly been immune from rage either. As the planet seems to melt down, day by day, week by week, no place may be. Everywhere, it seems, authorities are bracing themselves for the worst. Just yesterday, for instance, the New York Times reported that, in China, which has lost 20 million jobs in the last few months, “more than 3,000 public security directors from across the country are gathering in the capital to learn how to neutralize rallies and strikes before they blossom into so-called mass incidents.”
Good luck, as they say. Let Klare — who, back in the 1990s, may have been the first person to seriously consider the kinds of violence, conflict, and even “resource wars” that might arise out of scarcity and tough times — survey the global landscape and offer you a sense of what may lie ahead. Tom
A Planet at the Brink
Will Economic Brushfires Prove Too Virulent to Contain?
By Michael T. Klare
The global economic meltdown has already caused bank failures, bankruptcies, plant closings, and foreclosures and will, in the coming year, leave many tens of millions unemployed across the planet. But another perilous consequence of the crash of 2008 has only recently made its appearance: increased civil unrest and ethnic strife. Someday, perhaps, war may follow.
As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, plant managers, landlords, immigrants, and ethnic minorities. (The list could, in the future, prove long and unnerving.) If the present economic disaster turns into what President Obama has referred to as a “lost decade,” the result could be a global landscape filled with economically-fueled upheavals.
Indeed, if you want to be grimly impressed, hang a world map on your wall and start inserting red pins where violent episodes have already occurred. Athens (Greece), Longnan (China), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Riga (Latvia), Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Sofia (Bulgaria), Vilnius (Lithuania), and Vladivostok (Russia) would be a start. Many other cities from Reykjavik, Paris, Rome, and Zaragoza to Moscow and Dublin have witnessed huge protests over rising unemployment and falling wages that remained orderly thanks in part to the presence of vast numbers of riot police. If you inserted orange pins at these locations — none as yet in the United States — your map would already look aflame with activity. And if you’re a gambling man or woman, it’s a safe bet that this map will soon be far better populated with red and orange pins.
For the most part, such upheavals, even when violent, are likely to remain localized in nature, and disorganized enough that government forces will be able to bring them under control within days or weeks, even if — as with Athens for six days last December — urban paralysis sets in due to rioting, tear gas, and police cordons. That, at least, has been the case so far. It is entirely possible, however, that, as the economic crisis worsens, some of these incidents will metastasize into far more intense and long-lasting events: armed rebellions, military takeovers, civil conflicts, even economically fueled wars between states.
Every outbreak of violence has its own distinctive origins and characteristics. All, however, are driven by a similar combination of anxiety about the future and lack of confidence in the ability of established institutions to deal with the problems at hand. And just as the economic crisis has proven global in ways not seen before, so local incidents — especially given the almost instantaneous nature of modern communications — have a potential to spark others in far-off places, linked only in a virtual sense.
A Global Pandemic of Economically Driven Violence
The riots that erupted in the spring of 2008 in response to rising food prices suggested the speed with which economically-related violence can spread. It is unlikely that Western news sources captured all such incidents, but among those recorded in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were riots in Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Senegal.
In Haiti, for example, thousands of protesters stormed the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince and demanded food handouts, only to be repelled by government troops and UN peacekeepers. Other countries, including Pakistan and Thailand, quickly sought to deter such assaults by deploying troops at farms and warehouses throughout the country.
The riots only abated at summer’s end when falling energy costs brought food prices crashing down as well. (The cost of food is now closely tied to the price of oil and natural gas because petrochemicals are so widely and heavily used in the cultivation of grains.) Ominously, however, this is sure to prove but a temporary respite, given the epic droughts now gripping breadbasket regions of the United States, Argentina, Australia, China, the Middle East, and Africa. Look for the prices of wheat, soybeans, and possibly rice to rise in the coming months — just when billions of people in the developing world are sure to see their already marginal incomes plunging due to the global economic collapse.
Food riots were but one form of economic violence that made its bloody appearance in 2008. As economic conditions worsened, protests against rising unemployment, government ineptitude, and the unaddressed needs of the poor erupted as well. In India, for example, violent protests threatened stability in many key areas. Although usually described as ethnic, religious, or caste disputes, these outbursts were typically driven by economic anxiety and a pervasive feeling that someone else’s group was faring better than yours — and at your expense.
In April, for example, six days of intense rioting in Indian-controlled Kashmir were largely blamed on religious animosity between the majority Muslim population and the Hindu-dominated Indian government; equally important, however, was a deep resentment over what many Kashmiri Muslims experienced as discrimination in jobs, housing, and land use. Then, in May, thousands of nomadic shepherds known as Gujjars shut down roads and trains leading to the city of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, in a drive to be awarded special economic rights; more than 30 people were killed when the police fired into crowds. In October, economically-related violence erupted in Assam in the country’s far northeast, where impoverished locals are resisting an influx of even poorer, mostly illegal immigrants from nearby Bangladesh.
Economically-driven clashes also erupted across much of eastern China in 2008. Such events, labeled “mass incidents” by Chinese authorities, usually involve protests by workers over sudden plant shutdowns, lost pay, or illegal land seizures. More often than not, protestors demanded compensation from company managers or government authorities, only to be greeted by club-wielding police.
Needless to say, the leaders of China’s Communist Party have been reluctant to acknowledge such incidents. This January, however, the magazine Liaowang (Outlook Weekly) reported that layoffs and wage disputes had triggered a sharp increase in such “mass incidents,” particularly along the country’s eastern seaboard, where much of its manufacturing capacity is located.
By December, the epicenter of such sporadic incidents of violence had moved from the developing world to Western Europe and the former Soviet Union. Here, the protests have largely been driven by fears of prolonged unemployment, disgust at government malfeasance and ineptitude, and a sense that “the system,” however defined, is incapable of satisfying the future aspirations of large groups of citizens.
One of the earliest of this new wave of upheavals occurred in Athens, Greece, on December 6, 2008, after police shot and killed a 15-year-old schoolboy during an altercation in a crowded downtown neighborhood. As news of the killing spread throughout the city, hundreds of students and young people surged into the city center and engaged in pitched battles with riot police, throwing stones and firebombs. Although government officials later apologized for the killing and charged the police officer involved with manslaughter, riots broke out repeatedly in the following days in Athens and other Greek cities. Angry youths attacked the police — widely viewed as agents of the establishment — as well as luxury shops and hotels, some of which were set on fire. By one estimate, the six days of riots caused $1.3 billion in damage to businesses at the height of the Christmas shopping season.
Russia also experienced a spate of violent protests in December, triggered by the imposition of high tariffs on imported automobiles. Instituted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to protect an endangered domestic auto industry (whose sales were expected to shrink by up to 50% in 2009), the tariffs were a blow to merchants in the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok who benefited from a nationwide commerce in used Japanese vehicles. When local police refused to crack down on anti-tariff protests, the authorities were evidently worried enough to fly in units of special forces from Moscow, 3,700 miles away.
In January, incidents of this sort seemed to be spreading through Eastern Europe. Between January 13th and 16th, anti-government protests involving violent clashes with the police erupted in the Latvian capital of Riga, the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, and the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. It is already essentially impossible to keep track of all such episodes, suggesting that we are on the verge of a global pandemic of economically driven violence.
A Perfect Recipe for Instability
While most such incidents are triggered by an immediate event — a tariff, the closure of local factory, the announcement of government austerity measures — there are systemic factors at work as well. While economists now agree that we are in the midst of a recession deeper than any since the Great Depression of the 1930s, they generally assume that this downturn — like all others since World War II — will be followed in a year, or two, or three, by the beginning of a typical recovery.
There are good reasons to suspect that this might not be the case — that poorer countries (along with many people in the richer countries) will have to wait far longer for such a recovery, or may see none at all. Even in the United States, 54% of Americans now believe that “the worst” is “yet to come” and only 7% that the economy has “turned the corner,” according to a recent Ipsos/McClatchy poll; fully a quarter think the crisis will last more than four years. Whether in the U.S., Russia, China, or Bangladesh, it is this underlying anxiety — this suspicion that things are far worse than just about anyone is saying — which is helping to fuel the global epidemic of violence.
The World Bank’s most recent status report, Global Economic Prospects 2009, fulfills those anxieties in two ways. It refuses to state the worst, even while managing to hint, in terms too clear to be ignored, at the prospect of a long-term, or even permanent, decline in economic conditions for many in the world. Nominally upbeat — as are so many media pundits — regarding the likelihood of an economic recovery in the not-too-distant future, the report remains full of warnings about the potential for lasting damage in the developing world if things don’t go exactly right.
Two worries, in particular, dominate Global Economic Prospects 2009: that banks and corporations in the wealthier countries will cease making investments in the developing world, choking off whatever growth possibilities remain; and that food costs will rise uncomfortably, while the use of farmlands for increased biofuels production will result in diminished food availability to hundreds of millions.
Despite its Pollyanna-ish passages on an economic rebound, the report does not mince words when discussing what the almost certain coming decline in First World investment in Third World countries would mean:
“Should credit markets fail to respond to the robust policy interventions taken so far, the consequences for developing countries could be very serious. Such a scenario would be characterized by… substantial disruption and turmoil, including bank failures and currency crises, in a wide range of developing countries. Sharply negative growth in a number of developing countries and all of the attendant repercussions, including increased poverty and unemployment, would be inevitable.”
In the fall of 2008, when the report was written, this was considered a “worst-case scenario.” Since then, the situation has obviously worsened radically, with financial analysts reporting a virtual freeze in worldwide investment. Equally troubling, newly industrialized countries that rely on exporting manufactured goods to richer countries for much of their national income have reported stomach-wrenching plunges in sales, producing massive plant closings and layoffs.
The World Bank’s 2008 survey also contains troubling data about the future availability of food. Although insisting that the planet is capable of producing enough foodstuffs to meet the needs of a growing world population, its analysts were far less confident that sufficient food would be available at prices people could afford, especially once hydrocarbon prices begin to rise again. With ever more farmland being set aside for biofuels production and efforts to increase crop yields through the use of “miracle seeds” losing steam, the Bank’s analysts balanced their generally hopeful outlook with a caveat: “If biofuels-related demand for crops is much stronger or productivity performance disappoints, future food supplies may be much more expensive than in the past.”
Combine these two World Bank findings — zero economic growth in the developing world and rising food prices — and you have a perfect recipe for unrelenting civil unrest and violence. The eruptions seen in 2008 and early 2009 will then be mere harbingers of a grim future in which, in a given week, any number of cities reel from riots and civil disturbances which could spread like multiple brushfires in a drought.
Mapping a World at the Brink
Survey the present world, and it’s all too easy to spot a plethora of potential sites for such multiple eruptions — or far worse. Take China. So far, the authorities have managed to control individual “mass incidents,” preventing them from coalescing into something larger. But in a country with a more than two-thousand-year history of vast millenarian uprisings, the risk of such escalation has to be on the minds of every Chinese leader.
On February 2nd, a top Chinese Party official, Chen Xiwen, announced that, in the last few months of 2008 alone, a staggering 20 million migrant workers, who left rural areas for the country’s booming cities in recent years, had lost their jobs. Worse yet, they had little prospect of regaining them in 2009. If many of these workers return to the countryside, they may find nothing there either, not even land to work.
Under such circumstances, and with further millions likely to be shut out of coastal factories in the coming year, the prospect of mass unrest is high. No wonder the government announced a $585 billion stimulus plan aimed at generating rural employment and, at the same time, called on security forces to exercise discipline and restraint when dealing with protesters. Many analysts now believe that, as exports continue to dry up, rising unemployment could lead to nationwide strikes and protests that might overwhelm ordinary police capabilities and require full-scale intervention by the military (as occurred in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989).
Or take many of the Third World petro-states that experienced heady boosts in income when oil prices were high, allowing governments to buy off dissident groups or finance powerful internal security forces. With oil prices plunging from $147 per barrel of crude oil to less than $40 dollars, such countries, from Angola to shaky Iraq, now face severe instability.
Nigeria is a typical case in point: When oil prices were high, the central government in Abuja raked in billions every year, enough to enrich elites in key parts of the country and subsidize a large military establishment; now that prices are low, the government will have a hard time satisfying all these previously well-fed competing obligations, which means the risk of internal disequilibrium will escalate. An insurgency in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, fueled by popular discontent with the failure of oil wealth to trickle down from the capital, is already gaining momentum and is likely to grow stronger as government revenues shrivel; other regions, equally disadvantaged by national revenue-sharing policies, will be open to disruptions of all sorts, including heightened levels of internecine warfare.
Bolivia is another energy producer that seems poised at the brink of an escalation in economic violence. One of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, it harbors substantial oil and natural gas reserves in its eastern, lowland regions. A majority of the population — many of Indian descent — supports President Evo Morales, who seeks to exercise strong state control over the reserves and use the proceeds to uplift the nation’s poor. But a majority of those in the eastern part of the country, largely controlled by a European-descended elite, resent central government interference and seek to control the reserves themselves. Their efforts to achieve greater autonomy have led to repeated clashes with government troops and, in deteriorating times, could set the stage for a full-scale civil war.
Given a global situation in which one startling, often unexpected development follows another, prediction is perilous. At a popular level, however, the basic picture is clear enough: continued economic decline combined with a pervasive sense that existing systems and institutions are incapable of setting things right is already producing a potentially lethal brew of anxiety, fear, and rage. Popular explosions of one sort or another are inevitable.
Some sense of this new reality appears to have percolated up to the highest reaches of the U.S. intelligence community. In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 12th, Admiral Dennis C. Blair, the new Director of National Intelligence, declared, “The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications… Statistical modeling shows that economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one to two year period” — certain to be the case in the present situation.
Blair did not specify which countries he had in mind when he spoke of “regime-threatening instability” — a new term in the American intelligence lexicon, at least when associated with economic crises — but it is clear from his testimony that U.S. officials are closely watching dozens of shaky nations in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central Asia.
Now go back to that map on your wall with all those red and orange pins in it and proceed to color in appropriate countries in various shades of red and orange to indicate recent striking declines in gross national product and rises in unemployment rates. Without 16 intelligence agencies under you, you’ll still have a pretty good idea of the places that Blair and his associates are eyeing in terms of instability as the future darkens on a planet at the brink.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books).
Copyright 2009 Michael T. Klare
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 18:00:28
By: ordell on February 25, 2009
at 1:52 .
ERL travelers subsidy the KL sentral – putrajaya commuters! if you buy a ticket KL sentral – putrajaya (RM9.50) and a putrajaya – KLIA (RM6.20), you get the KLIA express ride for RM15.70 – more than 50% cheaper than RM35 ticket with only 5min more travel time!
U r right on cost/saving, but it will take about 33 minutes more time not 5 minutes. U have to wait for next trip (30 min later)
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 18:39:51
I just read the ERL concession is 30 years.
Assuming a payment of 125M RM a year from the airport tax. Total payout to ERL is 3.75B RM over this period. Total cost of construction of ERL is 1.3B RM.
The ERL business case is not about passengers and fares. These are irrelevant.
Bloody BN crony pirates.
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 18:40:55
@sosong: actually i haven’t tried it by myself i just saw it on klia express website where they state: “frequency: every 30min, journey time: 35min (with 3 stops)” see here: http://www.kliaekspres.com/index_train_schedules.html
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 19:45:43
Peter and Paul is one and the same….actual name..Saul.
Robbing Peter is just wayang kulit.
Paying Paul is a fact…now commonly known as commission..very legal.
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Feb 25, 2009 @ 20:56:26
This is all because Francis (or we call him Paul) has to pay his commissions to MM, SV, NR, and all his patrons la…so we all the Rakyat keep getting shafted!
Francis (o sorry forgot to call u Paul) – there will be an accounting in heaven; if you ever get there.
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Feb 26, 2009 @ 08:41:38
The Rakyat has been suckers all the while. If this is very unfair to the Rakyat, why is MCA, Gerakan and MIC (Forget UMNO) keeping quiet. I thought all of them are fighting for the Rakyat. Yet they keep very quiet and let a wrong be wrong. What sort of parties are them? Are they still afraid of UMNO and know only how to whine? They are part of the Govt. They should be able to do something about this. If nothing is done by them, they shouldn’t be voted in anymore. Let’s boycott them if we don’t see any action from them!!!!
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Feb 26, 2009 @ 09:54:37
Hey. MCA, Gerakan and MIC all have a share in the pillage and rape. Why should they make noise? They are part of the bloody problem.
Yo ho ho. And a bottle of rum.
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Feb 26, 2009 @ 10:38:23
Part of the problem they are….klm.
The worst sins committed by these three devils are supporting race and religion politics…that is impossible to unite Malaysians.
Out-dated British concept…….to divide and rule seems to appeal to some Malaysians that need to think and don’t simply believe.
Yip…UMNO and BN are behaving like pirates.
Now….MCA President is behaving like chief gangster……doing anything .. as he likes…trying so hard to bring Soi Lek down….yet he is teaching us morals and ethics.
Gerakan and MIC are very quiet….because they are nobody…reduced to complete puppets to UMNO with no principles in life…..just hoping UMNO can help them to win some seats…next election…with bribes…threats….provocation…and creating fears.
They have all figured out…except…no complete confidence that the military are on their side.
Malaysia is at the threshold to change for the better…and before UMNO looses power……they will do everything and anything…to confuse Malaysians…creating fears.
Let be be known…that if anyone dies out of no reasons…due to dirty politics…….Gerakan have played a part to encouraged it. Forewarn is foretold. Let those who support Gerakan..live with that guilty conscience for the rest of their lives.
Nice to give and take…for or against to learn.
But in reality….Malaysians are pushed to the wall…by UMNO money ..race and religion politics.
Gerakan members….are you reading this?
I have lived through May 13th…fighting to protect Chinese homes being burnt by Malays.
I have walked the talks.
How many of you Gerakan members dare to risk your lives for the country…besides being so smart to talk so call intelligent logic…where bottom line is….supporting divide to rule….and all other races are second class citizens to UMNO Malays.
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Feb 26, 2009 @ 16:46:50
Good article Dr.
However, it is sickening with every big project implemented by our present bunch of corrupted and greedy politicians in BN especially UMNO, the end result is that the poor rakyat got their $$$ robbed in BROAD daylite.
That sleepy flipflop lame duck guy still got the cheek to say that the government is sensitive to the rakyat needs. Actually it was the other way round. The rakyat should be more sensitive to the needs of those greedy and selfish, big fat politicians and their cronies living in their castles in Putrjaya. What a hypocrite.
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Feb 26, 2009 @ 16:49:21
Dr Hsu,
Apparently most of yr readers or commentators mindset will not foster an encouraging and constructive ideas on your part. Contrary to their adamant beliefs, we are actually still very immature politically and democratically. One shall be rational and not emotional when deciding an issue. The government of the day lost in not promoting effective economy and welfare.
Shall we crucify Paul in order to redeem Peter?
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Feb 26, 2009 @ 18:23:43
A few of my Malaysian friends asked me, a non-Malaysian, the following questions,
What if —— won Umno Youth Head
What if —— won Umno Deputy President
What if —— won Umno Wanita Head
What if —— lost Umno Youth Head
and so on and so forth…
To be neutral, I told them, anyone won ultimately, Malaysia is still the same.
But one thing for sure, BN will lose all Bukit bye-elections or what ever bye-elections until next GE.
Right or wrong, time will tell.
winners makan cili, losers rasa pedas, they are all the same.
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Feb 26, 2009 @ 22:25:02
Cilipadi,
You are right, otherwise you have to eat the cilipadi..ha.ha
Anyway, I feel the same…just look at the UMNO youth hooligans in the national zoo today, trying to stop Karpal Singh entering the building.
It deepens the resentment against a youth movement known for its threats, uncivilised behaviour, stopping seminars, threatening to burn down the Chinese Assembly hall and trying to rehabilitate Mat rempits, the ultimate joke.
It’ll be great if they rehabilitate themselves first, firstly, not respecting the zoo.
I don’t know, I have stopped supporting UMNO even before the kris was raised. I read all the archived historical documents on this hooligan movement. Karpal was right calling them hooligans….which I feel was already a polite description.
Check the facts on UMNO youth..these are the extremists, racists and divide Malaysians.
monk
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Feb 27, 2009 @ 01:01:25
I’m extremely disgusted. ERL is only the tip of the iceberg. The robbery behind the power contracts are far more unbelievable. 70% of YTL Corp’s annual earnings come from YTL Power. And we thought RM5 each from airport taxes is a big deal.
This Tan Sri is a big disgrace to Jesus. Now, there’s only one matter in my mind; I’m leaving FGA. I shall have nothing to do with him.
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Feb 27, 2009 @ 01:04:25
This is UMNO re-branded. I think they have been breeding a bunch of vicious mat rempits. A BN version of Hitler’s Brownshirts.
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Feb 27, 2009 @ 11:28:06
Peter and Paul are like gun runners for their boss…Mat..Jib..Din….UMNO gang leaders.
Pete and Paul …which Paul can also disguise himself as Paula…are doing all the donkey jobs….depositing huge commissions into their boss accounts…with a small cut for themselves too.
Peter and Paul are from MCA and Gerakan.
Kill their parties…..problems solve.
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Feb 27, 2009 @ 12:51:37
monk,
That was way I commented that whoever won the posts contested will be like ‘monkey see, monkey do’.
When general public pointed to them, telling them nicely (so that they won’t be harassed by police or charged) that they are arrogant, these hooligans pointed back to them that the general public challenged their rights and told to show ‘evidence’ that they are ‘arrogant’. They are just acting like monkeys by their actions and they have more rights than others.
Your country’s BTN had in fact did a lot of brain damage to these people. Mind you, they are CEOs of GLCs and would become PM of your country one day.
Just my little advice. If you want to read, read. If you choose to accept my view, much better. But you feel insulted, that’s the end of you.
Monkey see, monkey do. This is applicable to MCA, Gerakan, MIC…..you just need to jump out of these monkey dens to be man again.
Oops, why should I tell you this? None of my business, anyway.
monkey see, monkey do, monkey makan cili, monkey rasa pedas
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