Propaganda: Malaysian Style

The maxim that ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it’ appears to be the driving principle behind the public relations effort by our Malaysian Government over the proposed removal of the subsidies. The official ‘story’ such as the one by Sin Chew entitled ‘The Malaysian Dilemma’ exemplifies this. Here is an extract:

‘If Malaysia's economy can expand robustly over the next couple of years, and our incomes grow significantly with the wealth gap narrowed concurrently, then the ensuing pains from subsidy cuts will be diluted.

Very simple. The subsidies North Korean government has provided to its citizens are perhaps the most generous in the world, but with appallingly low incomes, the people remain impoverished despite the generous government subsidies. In contrast, South Koreans can still enjoy very comfortable lives without the generous handouts from the government, because they have very high incomes.

As a matter of fact, our government needs not worry about subsidy cuts. More importantly, it must implement policies that will enhance economic growth, improve government efficiency, while cutting down unnecessary red tape and corruption so as to boost investor confidence.

Subsidies will no longer be that important once our per capita income becomes doubled.’

Since this is an issue that concerns our livelihood, we should ‘THINK’ and see how ridiculous the argument above is.

IF, If and if

Reading the first paragraph implies that our economy has been stagnating, our income has shrunk and the wealth gap between the poor and the rich had grown substantially during the past decade.

Albert Einstein once quoted that ‘Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ So, let me ask you a simple question. How confident are you that the people that led our country on this financial precipice can find the courage, vision and wisdom to reverse our downturn and lead us onto a different path?

Subsidies Sucks

Is it true that subsidies are the bane of economic wealth? This article seems to imply that subsidies are the reason behind the decline of North Korea’s economy whereas the prosperity of the South Koreans is due to lack of subsidies. This is like comparing an apple with an orange. North Korea is under a dictatorship with substantial military spending. Further, with economic sanctions imposed on it by the United Nations, it is little wonder the country is suffering economically. To imply that subsidies are the reason for the poverty of the country is cheeky, to say the least.

Government Initiatives

The article goes further and states that the Government needs not worry about the cut in subsidies since ‘subsidies will no longer be that important once our per capita income becomes doubled’. Is this supposed to be a joke? Do you see the twisted logic here?

What the article is actually saying is that with the cut in subsidies, the Government will finally implement policies that will enhance economic growth and cut down on red tape and corruption. Of course, this implies that the Government has failed in implementing sound policies on economic growth for decades. Red tape and corruption have been allowed to flourish until we stand at the very edge of financial ruin.

The crux of the argument by the Government is that the subsidies are a waste of money. And that they are better used elsewhere to fuel economic growth of our country. We are now being asked to hand over more money to the people that created this mess in the first place. Now that’s really insane.

Conclusion

Whilst the Government is to be lauded with coming clean about the dire financial situation Malaysia is in, one should wonder whether it is too little, too late. Critical analysis and constructive suggestions such as ‘Economic tsunami heading our way’ by Dr Lim Teck Ghee is most instructive. What we don’t need is non-sensical propaganda saying ‘Yes’ to every government initiatives especially one as detrimental as removal of subsidies. Added with the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST), these are really dire times ahead for Malaysians.