The rest of the world is catching on to the easy monetary policy of the West. The BRICS nations are developing a new reserve currency that is likely to be backed by commodities and possibly gold. If this BRICS currency emerges, this is bad news for the West and the U.S. dollar, says Alasdair Macleod, head of research at Gold Money.
Read Macleod's writing: https://www.goldmoney.com/research
Three months ago ...
According to the economic definition:
"The price elasticity of demand is the percentage change in the quantity demanded of a good or service divided by the percentage change in the price. The price elasticity of supply is the percentage change in quantity supplied divided by the percentage change in price."
Economic Minister, Rafizi Ramli denied asking people to stop buying chicken but diverting the subject to the elasticity of supply and demand for chicken is the same thing.
Rubber chickens are elastic but not the live ones. Basic food items are usually inelastic. The supply and demand is not sensitive to prices to a certain extent.
The days yours truly was growing up, fish was the cheapest and most easily available source of protein. Chicken was considered a luxury consumed during kenduri, weddings and Hari Raya festivities.
It has since replaced fish.
November 21, 2022 11:30 am +08
When this essay is published, it would be the eve of voting day for the 15th general election. While we are uncertain at this point as to who the winners will be, one thing is for sure: governing Malaysia in the coming five years will not be easy. How the government performs will be crucial in determining whether we continue on this gradual downward slide or make the turn for the better.
A crisis, any crisis, is part of a journey, whether for an individual or a nation. That is quite normal. It is how we handle a crisis that is crucial in determining whether the path onwards is better or worse. Whether we are made better or worse by the crisis.
That experience has been somewhat worrying for the Malaysian economy. We have recovered from economic crises before, but lost some vigour afterwards. This was quite clear after the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis where growth rates since then have never come up to where they were before the crisis. It was as if the wind was taken out of our sails.
There is a lot to write on the 15th general election (GE15) but nothing was extraordinary worthy to write of. Its the same ole same ole.
Coincidently, Dr Nungsari told BFM radio yesterday that all parties were offering goodies than mentioning the elephant in the room of an impending recession and tight fiscal situation. A similar view expressed in the earlier posting.
The resolution to the no clear majority by any political block is interesting. Despite its disappointing showing, BN could not sit out of government to be opposition and was dragged in to the role of kingmaker.
Without their 30 seats, no side has the majority to form a government. Its in a bargaining position that PH is willing to have UMNO lead the coalition government in the states of Perak and Pahang. How will Agong resolve it for the federal government?
The break taken since August is long enough. It's time to come out of the block and start churning for the General Election.
It is not for lack of material to write or the absence of angle to approach the subject. There have been several attempts but lacked the motivation to get over the part writer's block and part exhaustion.
Taking a writing break was needed for the mind to rest and re-energise. It was the Saturday class of '73 to '77 reunion in Seremban for a trip down the memory lane of adolescence that revive the youthful enthusiasm in us.
Too bad there was an important meeting the next morning to be followed by an important trip to Ipoh. We would have stayed through the weekend.
Nevertheless it was sufficient to get us back in the mood again.
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The prosecution witness for Najib's first day court appearance for the 1MDB-Tanore case since started his sentence on Wednesday was Siti Zauyah Mohd Desa, the Deputy Secretary-General.
She admitted not knowing the accuracy and authenticity of her statement as it was prepared. Its typical heresay rampantly used as evidence by the prosecution in the SRC case and believed it was used by Nazlan in his judgement together with his presumptions like no thank you note. Commonly allowed to be heard in court are claims as such as "I assumed the order was from Najib", "XXX told me that Najib said this", etc.
Ironically, the Federal Court accepted the argument new evidence to be forwarded by Najib as heresay or after thought without flicking their ear flab to give a listen.
There is a mountain of doubts of minute details. For one, why is only Najib is being charged when tthose clearly revealed to be implicated are not charged or even protected by the Federal Court.
That is the optic seen by the non-prejudicial and off course, the pro-Najib side. The judicial discrepancy is too apparent to any casual observer that a social media commentator described as Constitutional crisis.
The weekend before the Federal Court final appeal began, Romen Bose; the former AFP reporter, former PMO and writer of the book Final Reckoning, he posted a status on his Facebook entitled: "Is this really justice?"
Last night, he updated with "The Silence is Defeaning."
For many years, he saw from inside the Prime Minister's Office the events, including the deceipts and betrayals, leading to the fall of the BN government in his book.
We are now witnessing the long anticipated endgame to imprison Najib Tun Razak, which would indirectly shame and the great legacy of his father Tun Abdul Razak bin Dato Hussein.
Al Fatihah. May Allah guide us all back to the straight and rightful path.
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| Launch of IJN's hospital information system |
"What matter is the the country loses. The navy, ATM loses. Today we're sending our young sailors facing potential adversary at sea - who are just waiting for orders from their government to push the button; naked and defenseless."
This is a quote from one Navy officer. His concern is genuine and agreeable. We emphatise.
Who then to blame?
N Shanmugam must be kidding.
The Edge contributing editor wrote a piece in this week's edition entitled: "Alternative view: The judiciary is our last beacon of hope". High Court Judges, Dato Azimah Omar and (now Court of Appeal), Dato Nazlan Ghazali highlighted as exemplaries.
This morning a politician forwarded the link to yours truly. Seeing the faces, it is obvious he is not quite up-to-date on the development in the court. And, it reflects badly on his intellectual ability to understand happenings beyond the convenient political headlines and simplistic soundbytes.
Alas, he will be returning into Tun Dr Mahathir's fold thus compromising himself in his late age to be willing complicit to corruption, abuse of power and inhuman cruelty (zulm). May Allah save his soul from the sin of destruction for succumbing to political expediency.
The hand behind the Judges this politician seemed proud of is destroying the Malaysian legal system with India-adopted basic structure doctrine, which is a manipulation of the law for personal agenda and against his raison d'etre.
[Paste the link https://anotherbrickinwall.blogspot.com/2022/05/foresaking-malaysia-for-indian.html on the proxy site here].
The Judges highlighted are conflicted and conduct ethically questionable. The judiciary Shanmugam put his hope have been a basket case for decades.
That is the title to an article by G Mahendran, a Bar Council legal practitioner in The Sun in 2009 as taken from Bar Council website here.
Dato Najib's appointed a new legal team on July 25th for his SRC appeal at the Federal Court. MMO reported the next day that Zaid Ibrahim will lead the new team to replace Shafee Abdullah. Another key member is renown criminal lawyer, Hisyam Teh Poh Teik.
The immediate reaction next day are prejudicial vews accusing the move as delay tactic. Few months ago, someone close to Najib said Najib had no such plan and is sticking to Shafee.
Najib explained the change was to give a fresh perspective to the case. The interpretation is Shafee and his team may have started on the wrong foot. Cool heads maybe needed to lower the temperature and to focus on the legal court over court of public opinion.
Zaid Ibrahim was reported by FMT on July 26th to seek postphonement. Hearing date was earlier set for August 15 to 26th. Only fair to allow the new team to prepare for the case. He mentioned seeking for case management date on July 29th. Presumably application was submitted.
Alas without allowing for the new team to present the request to the court, NST reported on July 29th around 5 PM of Federal Court rejection and was told no adjournment will be allowed. Presumably the letter was issued a day earlier and received by the lawyers next day on July 29th.
Was the letter suspiciously leaked by some court official to the press?
Tommy Thomas finally came out from silence to explain himself. Several mainstream media and news portal published Tommy's attempt to explan. (See The Edge here)
The opposition led by PKR's Rafizi created a media blitz to blame Dato Najib for stopping payment to the Suluk using weak legitimacy reasons. Prior and after the Lahad Datu incursion, PKR leaders were accused of covertly collaborating and supporting Suluk claim. PH has interest to redirect blame.
While Najib, in one of his endless FB status on the Suluk issue, highlighted his main blame to the letter issued by Tommy to the Sulu party that ended being repeatedly used 10 times at the Madrid arbitration to justify their claim and ultimately a US$14.92 billion claim on Petronas.
Shafie Apdal is vociferously demanding a debate in Parliament but as Chief Minister, he was accused by Anifah Aman for sending unprepared state legal officer to Madrid to participate and gave legitimacy to the arbitration.
Wisma Putra's position had all along ignored any attempt by the Suluk for engagement on any claim on Sabah. They took the Phillipines' official position that the Suluk has no sovereign right and the locus standi to do so.
Talk in Sabah is that Tan Sri Richard Malanjum had a role in advising Shafie.
This blog was alerted by Nuclearbursaman's posting, "Serba Dinamik: There is more than the eye can see".
Though aware of the Edge's report 3 days ago of "Creditors vote in favour of Serba Dinamik's scheme of arrangement", too overwhelmed by other prevailing issues and focused on research for articles on food security on rice and BNM's monetary policy reactions to the prevailing economic condition to ponder.
Cannot helped to be overwhelmed by NBM's comment:
ITS one thing massaging your accounts to pull the wool over the public eye, but it's a whole new different ball game trying to fool suspicious hard nose bankers the second time around.
Its mysterious enough for "Misteri Nusantara", a Malay TV program once shown on RTM thus worthy of a snapshot comment.
From the end of 2020 till early January 2021, this blog ABITW was aggresively campaigning for Khazanah Nasional to sell Silterra to DNex. Initially, the challenge was to get the foreign bidders out of the way.
Having succeeded, the next challenge was to take on the local competitor as in outsmart CC Puan and Green Packet's aggressive bid. CC Puan was truly a worthy competitor so to speak with their creative packaging of proposal, focused lobbying and public relation exercise.
Green Packet was aggressively pursued to convince the public (if not the decisionmakers) that DNex was the more genuine, technically and financially sound company for consideration.
Since then CC Puan have not been on the radar till a friend alerted of a Sabahkini article here on the bankruptcy of CC Puan. He quipped, "Sampai muflis bro kerjakan dia. Haha.. "
Do those in charge have foresight to see and exploit these chances?
Salahuddin Hisham
The Vibe
Updated 8 hours ago · Published on 25 Jul 2022 10:43AM · 0 Comments
THERE is a Chinese saying, “A crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind”. Despite the current bleak outlook of the global economy and food shortage crisis, all is not lost.
The Malaysian government should take advantage of the current malaise to reverse the chicken export ban policy, address food security concerns, and turn chicken farming into a major export-driven industry.
The current global economic concern is the anticipated recession that is happening in the midst of the rising US dollar, a hike in key interest rates, and high inflation. The anticipated post-pandemic reopening of the economy was stunted by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Major regions considered global engines of growth are slipping into recession.
The bleak global economic condition came with widespread shortages and a rise in food prices. Indonesia, India and even Malaysia recently resorted to halting food exports.
RAFIZI PROLONGING MAHATHIR'S NAJIB NAJIB NAJIB ... CHANT ON BEHALF OF DAIM
Rafizi is creating a political illusion because Atoq fear Najib will be acquited due to Nazlan Ghazali debacle and embarassingly faulty judgement of Nazlan and COA.
The optic surrounding the SRC case too overwhelming. If the put side to ignore the revealed e-mail and leaked MACC IP of Nazlan, judges in Malaysia will be looked upon as pariah.
A mistrial will invite unprecedented public outcry and scrutiny, and internationally, put into question the integrity of the whole system of law enforcement and justice albeit downgrade Bar Council to level of garbage collecting Town Council.
June 28, 2022
The technical committee to address food security issues met on Tuesday to discuss the new chicken price ceiling for July to September.
It was jointly chaired by Agriculture and Food Industry (MAFI) Minister Datuk Dr Ronald Kiandee, Domestic Trade and Consumers Affair Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta aas well as Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Md Zuki Ali.
The recommendation will be brought forward to the Cabinet and an announcement is due after their weekly meeting Wednesday.
After last week’s flipped announcement by Alexander Nanta to float the price of chicken, the Cabinet flopped back three days later with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob himself announcing the cancellation. All eyes await the Cabinet’s decision tomorrow.
At the rate Bar Council is clueless to rile up support to defend Justice Nazlan Ghazali for his bias judgement in the SRC case, the possibility of Dato Najib getting a mistrial is as good as sealed. It will prove that Mahathir, yet again, interfered and manipulated the judiciary.
It is pointless to repeat the list of issues mentioned too support the view as it has been repeatedly discussed at length. The integrity of judiciary is tarnished whether judgement on Najib remain or mistrial declared.
Better for Federal Court to acquit and face up temporarily to public critics, but its not as badly damaged that investors lose trust with the Malaysian judicial system.
Meanwhile, Muhyiddin repeatedly said he does not interfere in the judicial affair and allow 1MDB cases takes its own course. Unfortunately it was never believable because of his vindictive and manipulative politics.
More so, his own lawyer, Rosli Dahlan was instrumental in the long list of civil suit made by SRC and 1MDB. Initially a long list was named as defendants, but eventually the list was shortened including withdrawing known accomplices of Jo Low that it was too obvious it was targetted at Najib.
Bar Council will be holding a Walk of Justice this Friday, June 17. That was the decision of its recently held EGM.
It was intended to protest MACC investigation of Justice Nazlan Ghazali under the pretext of interference on judiciary. However, the outcome of the EGM did not turned out the way Ambiga claimed it to be.
Former Bar Committee member, Lukman Sheriff revealed there was no resolution passed to that effect. Resolution on the non-constitutionality of the investigation was rejected. There was allegation made against MACC for revealing name of judges but it did not occur. The Bar was desperately grasping for an issue to fault and did a volte-face (U-turn).
It explained for Dato Mah Weng Kwai's own volte-face two days before MACC announced completed investigation. He called for investigation on Nazlan be made known despite being vocal to protest the investigation of Nazlan and call on lawyers to support the protest.
Mah is not the only one. Current President Karen Cheah lashed out at critics for not demanding Nazlan to recuse, but yet volte-face on the cause for the protest.
We should take note that no matter how good the government’s policy on the economy is, if we as individuals are not productive, the country will continue to suffer.
Of late, we have been hearing netizens complaining about the country’s economy not being in good shape. The reason and examples given were aplenty but the most common ones were a weak Ringgit compared to Singapore and US Dollar, inflation and high national debts.
These are all some of the indicators of a weak economy but not always true. You can refer to the following articles: See here, here and here …
To understand economic growth we have to get back to basics. It works in all aspects and not just economy. Essentially, the four elements of economic growth are natural resources, human resources, capital and institutional factors. And of course the government economic policy on all these is important.
... In the meanwhile, Dato Izzadin Idris has resigned as President and CEO of Axiata Group with immediate effect yesterday. Celcom Axiata together with Digi, Maxis and U Mobile wants a 51% stake in DNB. The telcos agreeable to DNB are YTL and Telekom.
Apparently, Khazanah owned telcos have diverging view on DNB. Will Izzadin's departure open up Celcom to the possibility of supporting Government's 5G effort?
Edge here reported Ralph Marshall below:
“Basically if you don’t come in, we just have to open up the market,” Marshall said last week at his office in Kuala Lumpur. “The principle is accelerating the deployment and adoption of 5G in the national interest.”
Izzadin's resignation certainly raised a question. It is not so much the joint temporary CEOs are not Malaysians as the vernacular social media are concern off.
