The Irresponsible Society

www.kopihangtuah.blogspot.com

SOCIETY as a whole is often generalised by common characteristics that are deemed pervasive whether or not that act of generalisation is fair or not. Such is the nature of society itself to be unforgiving towards itself. Everybody is fine when positive conclusions are made but everybody gets jittery when the bad act of some segments are extrapolated to the entire population.

Last Saturday I encountered two good examples of bad habits that can be easily generalised as our society's shortfall when it comes to their responsibility as the citizens of the country. At the Gegaria festival at Setia Alam Convention Centre, I saw a truck organised by the elections commission, Suruhanjaya Pilihanraya (SPR). In my mind, what a great effort to persuade citizens to be responsible. There was a queue, which is good.

As I see some people walking by, I stopped them, out of curiosity, and asked, "Excuse me Sir/Madam, may I ask why aren't you queing to register as a voter?" To my surprise, I got many "irresponsible" replies. Replies that warrant the generalisation about our society. This irresponsible attitude is apparent across all walks of life be it the different age groups, ethnic groups or any basic demography.

We have people who have turned twenty one but did not register as voters because they felt it is unimportant and a waste of time or even simply with "I do not have the time" type attitude. We have people who have registered but could not be bothered to vote because of the same reasons. We also have people who have conveniently booked their time that clashes with the elections for overseas leisure holidays.

When probed further, these people do have concerns over govermental matters such as taxes, the education system, health matters, public transportation issues, cost of living, income disparity, ethnic tensions, crime rates, public service quality, religion and many more matters that are important and require government intervention.

How on Earth are we, the good citizens of the country, are going to exercise our rights on these matters other than via the power of our votes? Are we going to continue barking on the social media platforms or march down the roads all dressed in one colour be it yellow or red? Are we going to continue embracing this irresponsible attitude and let our children follow our habit, our bad habit (being irresponsible voters)? Especially when the 14th General Election is just around the corner.

The second encounter is the attitude of wanting everything for free. It is as if we are treating other people's generosity as our right (to consume for free). We are not a socialist society. We are a moderate capitalist country. We are the believers of working hard and honestly to rightfully earn income and make our wealth grow. Our economy is the exchange of supply and demand. That social contract (supply vs demand) is sacred. Once we ignore it, we will literally become a society of thieves.

For example, a friend complained "Why is there a lot of advertisements on our national television channels? Why do we have to still pay tolls for the highways? If education is free, I should not even have to contribute via the PIBG (Parents-Teachers associations). Parking should be free. Hospitals are too expensive." The list is long with no ending. I hope these people realise that these matters are also relevant to the issue of being a responsible voter as discussed earlier.

I will not address all of the above but I will talk about television advertisements. The programmes you watch on the Free-to-Air Television (FTA TV) channel such as TV3, are free. You do not have to pay a single Sen. Now imagine, how on Earth will TV3 pay the salaries of their workforce? Those engineers, those cameramen, the TV hosts, the journalists and many more, are also entitled to earn income in this moderate capitalist country like all of you. They too have the rights as the citizens of the country.

There are also other costs such as telecommunication services, commissioning production houses, rental expenses and many more expenditure required of a TV station. How do they (TV stations) pay for these? Will the money fall from the sky? Well, this is why they have money coming from the advertisers. This is why there are advertisements.

What is more saddening, not only we want things for free, we are not alarmed with our habit of consuming pirated products especially those content that can be downloaded or streamed from the pirate sites. By law, this behaviour can be charged as a criminal offence as our country is a member of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (usually known as the Berne Convention, an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886).

So are we an irresponsible society?

* kopihangtuah

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Yay! No More Tolls!

www.kopihangtuah.blogspot.com




1 JANUARY 2018 marks the first day of no road tolls for Batu Tiga Shah Alam and Sungai Rasau. Presumably because these two spots carry heavy loads of traffic for vehicles going in and out of Kuala Lumpur for early mornings and end of work later in the day.

In any case, many people who used to pay tolls at these spots are in joy as they will now save approximately RM2.20 per day. That is RM44.00 per month assuming 20 working days a month. Times 12 months and you will get RM528.00 savings per year. For the B40 income earners, that is significant. It accounts for 1 nasi lemak bungkus every working morning for breakfast.

Rightfully, and for simple reasons, when the Government abolishes tolls, people should be happy. All this while there were many complaints about cost of living especially when Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced a few years back. People asked how are they going to be benefited. It was widely urged that the GST monies should go back to the citizens via many forms of subsidies.

So, here we have one of those subsidies that we have been waiting for - to improve cost of living - to use GST monies socialistically. Why is it a subsidy? Well, the Government has to pay compensation of approximately RM100 million a year to the road concession owners (Plus Highways under UEM Berhad (UEM)) to make up for the lost of revenues arising from the abolishment of those tolls. Multiply that by the remaining years of the concession (20 years by the end of 2038), the subsidy will be RM2 billion.

For the B40, they will not care for the owners of the concession. They are only worried about their cost of living. So, generally they should and are happy with this piece of benefit arising from the 2018 Budget that was approved in the Parliament last year. However, for the more sophisticated and savvy citizens, they question the move especially when it is perceived as a popular stunt for the upcoming General Election.

The question they asked was why it took so long for the concession to end and that the roads should be free for all by now. It was reported by many sources that UEM, via Plus spokes person, that the concession expiry was  extended from 2018 to 2038. The extra 20 years are needed in order to generate enough cash flows to cover costs and repay loans taken to build those roads. This relocation of goal post is warranted by the decision made by the Government to not allow any increase in toll rates.

It was reported that the one way rate of RM1.10 last charged on 31 December 2017 was supposed to have been increased gradually over the past many years to be at a viable rate of RM2.40. In fact, it could have been much higher than RM2.40 under the original concession where the rates would have increased by either 10% every 2 years or 15% increase every 3 years.

This (non-increase in toll rates) happened all in the name of protecting the cost of living from being inflated - to move at the pace of disposable income growth - to ease the burden of the citizens. The Government, through the compensation, essentially pays itself (51%) via UEM and (49%) via Employee Provident Funds (EPF) as those entities are the contributors to the highways. This way, those entities are able to pay of their loans and simultaneously address the citizen's cost of living concerns.

One might criticise that this is a political stunt to win the hearts of the people. However on the flipside, people are expecting benefits to be flowed back to them after taxes have been collected. So, regardless of whether it is an election year or not, this was going to happen anyway. In fact, every year's budget will always have elements of winning the people's heart.

So, I would like to suggest my fellow Malaysians to not over analyse (and consequently to not be so negative about it) and take a good news as how a good news is supposed to be taken - i.e. be happy! Yay! No toll for people from Shah Alam, Klang and the region just beyond Sungai Rasau.

* kopihangtuah

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Is Malaysia Gonna Bankrupt?

www.kopihangtuah.blogspot.com

BANKRUPTCY is a huge word. Many people claim that our country is going to be bankrupt. Is Malaysia heading towards bankruptcy and unable to settle multiple huge debts?

Well, Malaysia does not have "huge" debts. Malaysia's Debt-to-GDP ratio is now at 50.7%. This is much lower than 92 other countries in the world which includes the likes of Singapore, Germany, USA, UK and pretty much the rest of the developed world. So, 91 countries in the world would have to go bankrupt first before Malaysia.

At 50.7%, it is less than double the 103.4% level in 1986. Our Government debt is not USD900 billion (RM3.6 trillion) as reported by unreliable sources recently. It is RM680 billion or about USD170 billion. If it is indeed RM3.6 trillion, then our Debt-to-GDP level would be close to 300% and would make us highest in the world - much higher than Japan's 220%.

Malaysia's Government debt is 97.5% denominated in Ringgit - a currency we control. This means that unlike Greece which owes and uses Euro that is beyond their control, Malaysia essentially owe ourselves so no one can make us bankrupt. In addition, Malaysia also does not owe a single sen to the World Bank or International Monetary Funds (IMF).

Comparing us with Greece is out of the question. Greece has a debt-to-GDP of 180% right now - more than triple of our 50.7%. The international credit ratings agencies rate Greece at a grade 11 notches lower than Malaysia. Moody's had given Greece a rating of CAA3 compared to Malaysia's rating of A3, which is investment grade. CAA3 is classified as "Rated as poor quality and very high credit risk." while A3 is given as "Rated as upper-medium grade and low credit risk."

Unlike now, at the turn of the millennium, Malaysia had to create Danaharta and Danamodal to bail-out and recapitalise our corporates and banks which were on the verge of failure. Our banks today all make record profits compared to the large losses then. At that time, our stock market plunged 80% to 200 points - unlike now where our stock-market index is at 1796 that is more than double the 800 points 5 years ago.

Back then, large numbers of projects such as the Plaza Rakyat, Bukit Beruntung, KL Linear City and Grand Hilton projects were abandoned - unlike today where no such projects have been abandoned. At that time, our Ringgit had also plunged more than 60% from RM2.30 to as low as RM4.86 to the USD before we had to impose capital controls to peg it at RM3.80.

So, on a balanced analysis, we are far from those dark days. There is still hope. Let 2018 be a prosperous year to us all. After all, 2018 is 2000 plus 18, which carries the meaning "Easiness times 1000 for the Days of Wealth."

* kopihangtuah

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To Socialise or Not to Socialise

www.kopihangtuah.blogspot.com

SOCIAL engagements have always been the retreat from hectic lives. In the old days of the British Isle, men would wind down at a pub after a long hard working week (or day). The word "pub" was derived from the word "public" for which the pub was meant to be, a place for public. A place to interact with other human beings not on business matters but on casual social matters.

The word "socialise" has taken many forms of manifestation in different cultures as well as in different era. In the early Roman Empire, bathing is a public agenda. People do not have bath alone. They have bath with many friends in a public bath pool and casual chats happen. In Japan, the same thing happens in a sauna room. In Malaya, a joget session would suffice for the same reason.

Fast forward to the modern age of internet and electronics, socialisation has emerged in its most diabolical form ever; the social media. Whilst the kids of the 70's, 80's and 90's (Generation X and Y) embraced physical forms of social activities such as cycling, football, "Polices and Thieves", "Galah Panjang", "Gasing" and playing marbles; their counterparts since the turn of the millennium have been and are still being possessed by virtual tools such as facebook, instagram, twitter and video games.

Why is it diabolical? Firstly, the modern social media takes away the direct human interaction and forces the users to voluntarily rely on electronic devices. Secondly, it forces us to voluntarily abandon the avenue to burn the excess sugar we have in our bodies that could have been burnt otherwise. Thirdly, it forces us to voluntarily make irrational conclusions about news we receive everyday without proper regard to authenticity, integrity and reliability. In the end, we will all (if not yet) be non-independent, fat and gullible society. In short, zombies.

Just one glance at everyone in the train is enough to portray a fantastic snap shot of zombies whose heads are 45 degrees downward looking. A family dinner has ceased to be the forum for fathers to check on their kids' school life because both parents and kids have the same 45 degrees head syndrome. Soon the parliament will also start showing the 45 degrees rows of heads. Worse, you might even see the same happening to the drivers in the cars surrounding you in the traffic jam.

What have become of us? Do we now embrace this new form of socialsation or not? That is the question. You would probably have noticed that the earlier paragraph on why it is diabolical has two contradicting words in a sentence - i.e. "force" and "voluntarily". We are inevitably forced to undergo the unhealthy lifestyle when we have voluntarily chosen to adopt the lifestyle itself. Which means, we are not doomed yet. We can still "volunteer" ourselves not to be dependent on social media, not to foresake physical forms of social engagements and not to be gullible to conclude everything we see or read on the social media.

Imagine the benefits that we can earn by being moderate when using social media. Time will not be wasted. Telephone and internet bills will show lower costs. More fat can be burnt. We will not spread lies nor react unnecessarily to irresponsible propagandas. We will talk face to face with friends amd families like what human beings are supposed to do. Fathers can catch up with their sons and daughters regularly. More work is done in the office. Less insomnia. Husbands and wives cherish each other when those supposedly romantic nights are not invaded by late night facebook postings. The list can be very long indeed.

So, are we to socialise or not to socialise? With the sixty million mobile devices currently in use in Malaysia, even at the young age of two years old, it is almost impossible to socially reject social media; just like if we are to reject televisions or radios. Malaysians have been ranked as one of the top users of social media globally (relative to the country's population) and statistics show tremendous potential growth in digital behaviours and this is met with an inverse trend in traditional media. We cannot fight it. But what we can do is, ride on it wisely.

* kopihangtuah

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