How I will cast my vote - PAGE + PPSMI

The issue of reverting the medium of instruction of the Science and Mathematics subjects in Malaysian schools from the English language to Bahasa Malaysia still burns in the depths of my soul.

After I read this report in the Malaysian Insider, I have resolved to cast my vote in favour of the political party that supports the maintenance of English as the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics.

All the bullshit politics make no sense to me.

But, the issue of educating Malaysians to the greatest advantage possible and, to equip young Malaysians to compete at the global level makes eminent sense to me.

I have seen how my children benefited from PPSMI since it was implemented in 2003.

Two of my children are still in school at Form Two and Form 4.

I don't care what any politician, political party, NGO or any publicity-seeking hound says anymore.

I support PAGE's stand.

The Malaysian Government should stick to the maintenance of English as the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics.

Stay the course.

And, I will support the political party that supports the maintenance of English as the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics.

It will be that simple to get my vote.

SME

Just over half or 56% of total employment comes from this sector where 19% to the nation's total exports stem from. 

The segment also represents 99% of total business establishments and is a substantial contributor to the country's gross domestic product at 31%.

Sourced from here.

Given the stats above, why do my SME friends still feel orphaned and unappreciated and are finding difficulty with obtaining funding support?

More action, less words, please.

English in Math and Science - PAGE Forum Sunday 16 January 2011

Time for IPPs to help the rakyat

Kudos are due to Business Times for this op-ed piece. This blog has hammered the IPPs for the lop-sided Power Purchase Agreements (PPA). The BT's op-ed reminder is timely. I implore the government to pay heed to this perspective that come the time to renegotiate the PPAs, the government must support Tenaga Nasional's position and pay heed to the massive burden that the Malaysian consumer has to endure with this example of dodgy privatisation model.

Here's the BT op-ed piece:

Sweetheart deals that the first-generation independent power producers (IPPs) secured in the early 1990s will expire in stages from end-2014 or 2015.

It is often highlighted that these IPPs have collected billions of ringgit from lopsided power purchase agreements (PPAs) that put them in very minimal or an almost zero-risk environment.

The IPPs are YTL Power Generation Sdn Bhd, Genting Sanyen Power Sdn Bhd, Segari Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd, Powertek Bhd and Port Dickson Power Sdn Bhd. They are controlled by some of the country's richest families and individuals.

Constitution of the State of Selangor

The Constitution of the State of Selangor.

I have attached above the url link to the Constitution of the State of Selangor.

pix from here.

This time is a good opportunity to understand the importance of constitutions.

There are many explicit provisions and procedures in constitutions.

At the same time, there are many practices or conventions that have been taken for granted or overlooked.

pix from here.

This is as good a time as any to flick the dust of the Constitution of the State of Selangor and look at it with an objective and unbiased mind.

Nor should politics and partisanship dilute the executive powers vested in the Menteri Besar of Selangor.

What is the proper procedure for the appointment of the State Secretary of Selangor?

Who initiates the process of appointment of the State Secretary of Selangor?

Does the Menteri Besar of Selangor have any constitutional role to play in the appointment of the State Secretary of Selangor?

In these inquiries, let the Rule of Law be our guiding principle.

And, let not politics and partisanship affect the dignity and standing of DYMM Sultan Selangor.

Allah lanjutkan usia Tuanku.

-extracted from the State Anthem of Selangor-

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

It is tempting to gaze into the crystal to see what one hopes 2011 will be like. Well, less racial nonsense will be a very good thing. 

No prayer in the world will prevent excessive politicking from occurring in Malaysia. But, unlike straightjacketed places like Singapore or China, Malaysia has a vibrant democratic ethos. So, politics or, even the excess of it, is something we will all have to accept.

That is not a bad thing if there is sufficient civility and a large dollop of good sense.

pix from here.

I, for one, am very proud of our great nation.

No, it's not just because I cheered myself hoarse in both legs of the Suzuki AFF finals where our young Harimaus broke valiant Indonesian hearts.

And, it's not just because my firm's order book for 2011 looks damn promising.

It's because Malaysia has weathered the results of the 2008 General Elections very well in spite of the sea-change from BN's loss of it's two-thirds majority.

Yes, there has been a lot of unsatisfactory tactics and blatant cheating. Yes, corruption still needs to be tackled even more firmly. Yes, street crime is still a source of great concern for all Malaysians.

These are challenges that we shall have to face.

It is the job of the Loyal Opposition to throw brickbats. Equally, it is the job of the Party in Government to counter the brickbats and swing some of its own. That's democracy. 

As citizens, it will be for each of us to dutifully support any leader who argues for stronger audits of the governance of the Federal Centre and each of the States.

Above all else, to my mind, we must be the most vigilant about the Local Governments whose incompetence, bad planning and sheer abuse and neglect, has caused each and every one of us to suffer from traffic jams, poor road maintenance, non-functioning traffic lights, unlit street lights and the list goes on. We, the ratepayers, must hold those buggers running the Local Governments to account.

For, in the final analysis, the average citizen's most frequent contact with the GOVERNMENT is at the Local Government level.

Have a good New Year celebration, Malaysia.

MERRY TROPICAL CHRISTMAS 2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010

pix from here

My seasons greetings to all Malaysians who are celebrating Christmas. To the rest of Malaysia and elsewhere, I wish you happy holidays.

I thought a tropical Christmas picture will balance out the news of winter chills and airport closures in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Ronald Coase turns 100

Many blogger buddies may be piqued to learn that part of Ronald Coase's work, if properly applied by Rais Yatim's Ministry, would have prevented much of the criticism levelled at the Minister, the Ministry and the Commission that regulates telecommunications in Malaysia.

Read Coase's description of his work in this area (emphasis added by me):

"I made a study of the Federal Communications Commission which regulated the broadcasting industry in the United States, including the allocation of the radio frequency spectrum. I wrote an article, published in 1959, which discussed the procedures followed by the Commission and suggested that it would be better if use of the spectrum was determined by the pricing system and was awarded to the highest bidder. This raised the question of what rights would be acquired by the successful bidder and I went on to discuss the rationale of a property rights system." 

I stumbled onto Ronald Coase's considerable corpus of work on economics and law when I was pursuing postgraduate academic studies. 

Coase is best known for the following work which I have embedded links to Wiki:

Nature of the firm;

The problem of social cost; and, most especially (to me)

Economic analysis of law aka Law and Economics.

More to the point, Coase's work is extremely helpful when we try to evaluate the costs and benefits of government regulation. Malaysia can certainly use Coase's methodology when deciding on economic policy and regulations within the context of fair economic competition. But, this is not the time and place to discuss the matter. This post is about honouring Coase and his contribution to our understanding of the economics of commercial transactions and government regulations for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics.

Coase, born on 29th December 1910, will turn 100 next week. An amazing longevity achieved by an amazing mind.

The Schumpeter column of The Economist has rightly honoured the man who was born in the United Kingdom and, since 1951, resided in the United States.

Coase was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991. I offer you his autobiography written by Coase himself in 1991 on the occasion of the Nobel Prize award:

Zhuge Liang as a Tragic Hero

Don't mind me. It's just me squirrelling away some acorns during my period of hibernation...

Zhuge Liang as a Tragic Hero:

His Failure to Win against Heaven's Will due to His Confucian Beliefs

Sourced from here. An essay by AshleyTerra. 

A star falls to announce the death of Zhuge Liang, one of the most beloved characters of Three Kingdoms. At first glance, the attraction seems obvious: he is popular because he is a hero with a whole slew of victories. In fact, he is so successful and skilled that many, including C.T. Hsia, consider him the main hero of Three Kingdoms (31). As a scholar hero, he kills opponents "with the tip of his tongue, or, better, of his brush" instead of a sword and is both "daring and courageous… in court and council" (Ruhlmann 161). However, this interpretation fails to provide a satisfactory explanation because the novel is filled with successful heroes, like Zhao Zilong, who never gains the same adoration. When one takes a look at the historical Zhuge Liang, one would find that he was "simply a prominent figure to whom one might feel varying proportions of admiration or disgust… as toward any other influential person in public life" (Henry 604) despite all his successes in his lifetime. It was only after his death that popular sentiment turns to adulation, beginning in the area where he died (Henry 608). This gives the necessary clue to suggest that it was not Zhuge Liang's successes as a scholar hero that endeared him to the public, but rather the tragic nature of his heroism as a Confucian hero.

Borowitz slays me

Here's the headline from the satirical, political lampooning, take-the-Mickey-out-of-politicos, Borowitz Report....

U.S. Orders Diplomats to Stop Telling Truth Until Further Notice

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In the first major policy fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosures, the State Department has ordered all U.S. diplomats to “cease and desist telling the truth until further notice.”

“We are working overtime to try to make sure that leaks like these don’t happen again,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters.  “But until we’ve got the leaks plugged, it’s incumbent on all our diplomats to put on their lying caps.”

Secretary Clinton noted that since many US diplomats are major political donors with long careers in the business world, “this shouldn’t be a reach for them.”

But for those career diplomats who came up through the Foreign Service, the State Department will be holding a series of “truth avoidance seminars,” led by executives of Goldman Sachs.

Additionally, Secretary Clinton said, the State Department would install on all diplomats’ computers new software called CandorShield™, which automatically translates truthful language into a less embarrassing truth-free version.

For example, she explained, the software would translate the phrase “two-faced weasels” into “trusted Pakistani allies” and would delete all references to French President Nicolas Sarkozy as “Monsieur Shorty Pants.”

Elsewhere, Interpol issued this statement about its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: “We will find Julian Assange, and then we will hire him.”

Facebook Shares Get Sliced Into Derivatives as Value Surges

Don't mind me. I'm just putting this up as a resource. But, since I'm at it, I may as well say what I think in the deep recesses of my vacuous mind.

I'm endlessly fascinated and, at the same time, repulsed, by the numbers of ways in which equity, equity-type, financial, and financial-type products can be derived and derived upon derive from a basic equity or debt instrument.

Here we have another derivative product. It is linked to a super-duper company, Facebook. 

This report is from Bloomberg:

Facebook Inc.’s surging valuation is spurring shareholders to slice and dice their stock, giving investors everywhere from Silicon Valley to Wall Street a chance to bet on the company.

Laffer Curve + Irish Implosion

To me an interesting article begins with an anecdote. So, Chris Farrell's piece on Arthur Laffer and his Curve, weaved with supply-side economic thinking as lead-ins to the current Irish economic crisis is, most certainly, an interesting article.

Basically, the point is that reduction of taxes a'la Ireland, is not a panacea to the challenges of managing an economy. But, then again, what policies are ever permanent? Of course, Farrell is dealing with the current set of economic challenges in the Western world - dealing with an era of tax cuts and deregulation - and witnessing the sheer and wanton abandon with which financial institutions failed to apply common sense and risk management principles.

Let me not get carried away.

I will just tease you with the opening lines of Farrell's piece. Then you can click on the "read more" to, well, read more:

It may be the most famous dinner in economic history. Arthur Laffer was a professor at the University of Chicago. In December 1974 he dined at the Two Continents Restaurant in Washington, D.C., with Donald Rumsfeld, chief of staff to President Ford; Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld's deputy; and Jude Wanniski, associate editor at The Wall Street Journal. According to Wanniski, Laffer grabbed a napkin and pen and sketched out the Laffer Curve, illustrating the trade-off between tax rates and tax revenues. In a few more years the tax-cut philosophy dubbed supply-side economics would dominate fiscal policy under President Ronald Reagan.

Microfinance Dominates Indonesian Shariah-Compliant Loans

The trend of microfinance products gaining traction in populous nations like Indonesia will have positive results for their economy. I've been a fan of microfinance for some time now. My previous blogposts on this will bear me out. 

However, as always, the caution is always on the mode of delivery. The Grameen model is the ideal one. I'm not sure how Indonesia is doing the delivery of microfinance products. But, if banks are the ones providing the delivery of microfinance products one key feature of the Grameen model will certainly be absent. This is the feature of community-guarantee, where five borrowers who are known to each other will collectively guarantee and vouch for each other. This feature has been, in my view, crucial in reducing the rate of defaults in microfinance loans. 

The absence of this feature has been my concern about Malaysian-based microfinance products.

Simplify

In tandem with my hesitant entry into microblogging, I have also decided to ditch the claustrophobic feel of the library template to go for absolute simplicity. No more frills.

Microblogging on the fly

Alas! The pressures of time and commitments have caught up with me in recent months. I have had to resort to using the social media to maintain some semblance of a presence in the blogosphere.

So, as you may have noted, I have created a Twitter sidebar so that I can still do some micro jottings.

I approach this new feature with much trepidation because 140 characters in Twitter may not look pretty for someone who is used to 1,000 word excursions. Needless to say, my blogging history has not prepared me at all for the haiku-like requirements of Twitterdom.

HAPPY DEEPAVALI 2010

HAPPY DEEPAVALI TO ALL HINDUS IN MALAYSIA AND ELSEWHERE. And, happy long weekend to the rest of Malaysia. Be safe.

The name Diwali is a contraction of the word "Deepavali" (Sanskrit: दीपावली Dīpāvali), which translates into row of lamps. Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps (divas) (or Deep in Sanskrit: दीप) filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. Source: Wikipedia

pix from here.

Ted Sorensen

Every leader needs a good speechwriter and alter ego. He had two close confidantes with whom he could bounce ideas and receive advice - the kind of advice that is free of any sycophancy. John F. Kennedy was lucky. He had Bobby and Ted.

There was Robert F. Kennedy. Bobby was the enforcer who could run interference to deflect JFK from any political danger.

Then, there was Ted Sorensen, who died yesterday. With Sorensen's passing, the mythical Camelot of the Kennedy Presidency has lost its final link.

I have done a post sometime ago in the eve of Barack Obama's presidential inauguration where I focused on styles of speaking between JFK and Obama. I highlighted Sorensen's crucial role in preparing and drafting JFK's seminal Inaugural Adress in 1961.

I am too involved in project work to pen down my own thought and words about my own feelings on the matter of Sorensen's passing. Instead, I refer you to the most excellent eulogy of sorts from the Boston Globe:

Of the courtiers to Camelot's king, Theodore C. Sorensen ranked just below Bobby Kennedy. He was the adoring, tireless speechwriter and confidant to President John F. Kennedy, whose term was marked by Cold War struggles, growing civil rights strife and the beginnings of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Soaring rhetoric helped make Kennedy's presidency a symbol of hope and liberal governance, and the crowning achievement for Sorensen, who died Sunday, was the inaugural address that was the greatest collaboration between the two and set the standard for modern oratory.

With its call for self-sacrifice and civic engagement -- "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" -- and its promise to spare no cost in defending the country's interests worldwide, the address is an uplifting but haunting reminder of national purpose and confidence, before Vietnam, assassinations, Watergate, terrorist attacks and economic shock.

But to the end, Sorensen was a believer.

He was 82 when he died at noon at Manhattan's New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center from complications of a stroke, his widow, Gillian Sorensen, said.

Sorensen had been in poor health in recent years and a stroke in 2001 left him with such poor eyesight that he was unable to write his memoir, "Counselor," published in 2008. Instead, he had to dictate it to an assistant.

President Barack Obama issued a statement saying he was saddened to learn of Sorensen's death.

"His legacy will live on in the words he wrote, the causes he advanced, and the hearts of anyone who is inspired by the promise of a new frontier," Obama said.

Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, called Sorensen a "wonderful friend and counselor" for her father and all of her family.

"His partnership with President Kennedy helped bring justice to our country and peace to our world. I am grateful for his guidance, his generosity of spirit and the special time he took to teach my children about their grandfather," she said in a statement.

Hours after his death, Gillian Sorensen told The Associated Press that although a first stroke nine years ago robbed him of much of his sight, "he managed to get back up and going."

She said he continued to give speeches and traveled, and just two weeks ago, he collaborated on the lyrics to music to be performed in January at the Kennedy Center in Washington -- a symphony commemorating a half-century since Kennedy took office.

"I can really say he lived to be 82 and he lived to the fullest and to the last -- with vigor and pleasure and engagement," said Gillian Sorensen, who was at his side to the last. "His mind, his memory, his speech were unaffected."

Her husband was hospitalized Oct. 22 after a second stroke that was "devastating," she said.

Some of Kennedy's most memorable speeches, from his inaugural address to his vow to place a man on the moon, resulted from such close collaborations with Sorensen that scholars debated who wrote what. He had long been suspected as the real writer of the future president's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Profiles in Courage," an allegation Sorensen and the Kennedys emphatically -- and litigiously -- denied.

They were an odd but utterly compatible duo, the glamorous, wealthy politician from Massachusetts and the shy wordsmith from Nebraska, described by Time magazine in 1960 as "a sober, deadly earnest, self-effacing man with a blue steel brain." But as Sorensen would write in "Counselor," the difference in their lifestyles was offset by the closeness of their minds: Each had a wry sense of humor, a dislike of hypocrisy, a love of books and a high-minded regard for public life.

Kennedy called him "my intellectual blood bank" and the press frequently referred to Sorensen as Kennedy's "ghostwriter," especially after the release of "Profiles in Courage." Presidential secretary Evelyn Lincoln saw it another way: "Ted was really more shadow than ghost, in the sense that he was never really very far from Kennedy."

Sorensen's brain of steel was never needed more than in October 1962, with the U.S. and the Soviet Union on the brink of nuclear annihilation over the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Kennedy directed Sorensen and Bobby Kennedy, the administration's attorney general, to draft a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, who had sent conflicting messages, first conciliatory, then confrontational.

The carefully worded response -- which ignored the Soviet leader's harsher statements and included a U.S. concession involving U.S. weaponry in Turkey -- was credited with persuading the Soviets to withdraw their missiles from Cuba and with averting war between the superpowers.

Sorensen considered his role his greatest achievement.

"That's what I'm proudest of," he once told the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald. "Never had this country, this world, faced such great danger. You and I wouldn't be sitting here today if that had gone badly."

Robert Dallek, a historian and the author of "An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963," agreed that Sorensen played a central role in that crisis and throughout the administration.

"He was one of the principal architects of the Kennedy presidency -- in fact, the entire Kennedy career," he said Sunday.

Of the many speeches Sorensen helped compose, Kennedy's inaugural address shone brightest. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations includes four citations from the speech -- one-seventh of the entire address, which built to an unforgettable exhortation: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Much of the roughly 14-minute speech -- the fourth-shortest inaugural address ever, but in the view of many experts rivaled only by Lincoln's -- was marked by similar sparkling phrase-making:

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

-- "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

-- "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

As with "Profiles in Courage," Sorensen never claimed primary authorship of the address. Rather, he described speechwriting within Kennedy's White House as highly collaborative -- with JFK a constant kibitzer.

In April 1961, weeks into the Kennedy presidency, the Soviet Union launched the first man into orbit. Less than a month later, Alan Shepard became the first American in space with a 15-minute suborbital flight. The idea of a moon landing "caught my attention, and I knew it would catch Kennedy's," Sorensen recalled. "This is the man who talked about new frontiers. That's what I took to him."

Shortly after Shepard's landmark flight, Kennedy said: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." U.S. astronauts met that deadline in July 1969.

Kennedy reinforced the Eisenhower administration's commitment of sending advisers to South Vietnam, but Sorensen maintained that the president, had he not been assassinated, would eventually have withdrawn American troops. Sorensen also believed that the president would have passed the civil rights legislation that successor Lyndon Johnson pushed through.

On the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, Sorensen was leaving his home in Arlington, Va., where he had stopped briefly after lunching with a newspaper editor, when he was summoned to the White House.

There, his secretary told him that the president had been shot in Dallas.

"Sometimes," Sorensen told an interviewer in 2006, "I still dream about him."

Sorensen's youthful worship never faded, even as he acknowledged Kennedy's extramarital affairs. "It was wrong, and he knew it was wrong, which is why he went to great lengths to keep it hidden," Sorensen wrote in his memoir. "In every other aspect of his life, he was honest and truthful, especially in his job. His mistakes do not make his accomplishments less admirable; but they were still mistakes."

Sorensen would witness a brief revival of Camelot with the presidential election of Obama, whom Sorensen endorsed "because he is more like John F. Kennedy than any other candidate of our time. He has judgment as he demonstrated in his early opposition to the war in Iraq."

A year after Obama's election, Sorensen said he was disappointed with the president's speeches, saying that Obama was "clearly well informed on all matters of public policy, sometimes, frankly, a little too well informed. And as a result, some of the speeches are too complicated for typical citizens and very clear to university faculties and big newspaper editorial boards."

Theodore Chaikin Sorensen was born in Lincoln, Neb., on May 8, 1928. His father, C.A. Sorensen, was a lawyer and a progressive politician who served as Nebraska's attorney general.

His son described the elder Sorensen as "my first hero." Growing up, Sorensen once joked, "I wasn't involved in politics at all -- until about the age of 4."

He graduated from Lincoln High, the University of Nebraska and the university's law school. At age 24, he explored job prospects in Washington, D.C., and found himself weighing offers from two newly elected senators, Kennedy of Massachusetts and fellow Democrat Henry Jackson, from Washington state.

As Sorensen recalled, Jackson wanted a PR man. Kennedy, considered the less promising politician, wanted Sorensen to poll economists and develop a plan to jump-start New England's economy.

"Two roads diverged in the Old Senate Office Building and I took the one less recommended, and that has made all the difference," Sorensen wrote in his memoir. "The truth is more prosaic: I wanted a good job."

At the 1956 Democratic National Convention, the charismatic Kennedy attracted wide attention as a candidate for vice president. He eventually withdrew, but his exposure at the convention led to a flurry of invitations to speak around the country.

During the next four years -- the de facto beginning of Kennedy's presidential run -- he and Sorensen traveled together to every state, with Sorensen juggling various jobs: scheduler, speechwriter, press rep.

"There was nothing like that three-four year period where, just the two of us, we were traveling across the United States," Sorensen told The Associated Press in 2008. "That's when I got to know the man."

After Kennedy's thousand days in the White House, Sorensen worked as an international lawyer, counting Anwar Sadat among his clients. He stayed involved in politics, joining Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968 and running unsuccessfully for the New York Senate four years later. In 1976, President Carter nominated Sorensen for the job of CIA director, but conservative critics quickly killed the nomination, citing -- among other alleged flaws -- his youthful decision to identify himself as a conscientious objector.

Besides "Counselor," his books included "Decision Making in the White House" (1963), "Kennedy" (1965) and "The Kennedy Legacy" (1969). In 2000, Hollywood turned the Cuban missile crisis into a movie called "Thirteen Days." Actor Tim Kelleher played Sorensen.

His role, according to Sorensen? To "think and worry. ... often bent over."

Gillian Sorensen said a public memorial service would be held for her husband in about a month, but the exact date has yet to be set. She said there would be no formal funeral.

Survivors also include a daughter, Juliet Sorensen Jones, of Chicago; three sons from his first marriage, Eric Sorensen, Stephen Sorensen and Philip Sorensen, all of Wisconsin; and seven grandchildren.

How To Innovate Like Steve Jobs

All the stuff that we've been reading in the local mainstream media and, all the interviews *blah-blah**yawn* never really tell you how innovative ideas come about.

There's a scene from a great 1980s movie, Working Girl, where the media tycoon, Trask, asked Melanie Griffith's character (who had been accused of stealing Sigourney Weaver's character's idea), "What was your impulse (for the multi-million dollar merger deal)?"

What was your impulse?

Where does the creative spark come from?

Do rote-learning help with creativity?

Does the lack of reading help with creativity?

Don't worry, I am just being rhetorical. Not substantive. Just light fluff. Just like how politicians talk at general assemblies.

Anyway, back to the point.

The lead-in to the extract that I'm setting out below is that we have to understand that Steve Jobs had a restless and inquisitive mind. He has always been a passionate man. I imagine that he reads voraciously.

True, he was a college dropout. But, remember that, just as it was with Bill Gates, Jobs dropped out of college because he had a kind of epiphany - a realisation that he really wanted to get into the nascent computer industry of the time. It was NOT because he felt that he was too dumb to pass his exams.

Some of us are plodders. We follow the syllabus. Others, like Jobs, have minds that are wired differently.

Remember the scene from A Beautiful Mind where Russell Crowe's character, John Nash was standing at the pub bar in Princeton. The girl walks in. All the men turned their heads to look at her. Suddenly it hit Nash. He saw the patterns of probabilities and possibilities in human behaviour that led him to his great Game Theory postulation. It eventually won Nash the Nobel Prize (was it for Economics or Mathematics?).

So, read on...the piece is surced from Forbes:

There’s a chapter in the book called, “Kick-Start Your Brain.” In it, Gallo explains that what scientists have found is that great innovators practice what’s called “association”. They look outside their industry for ideas they can apply within their organization. Steve Jobs has been doing that his whole life.

Here are two examples:

1) Gallo says Jobs’ inspiration for not having a designated cashier in the Apple Store, came from the Four Seasons hotel chain, which has a concierge;

2) When Jobs and Steve Wozniak were creating the Apple 2 computer, which became one of best selling personal computers of its time, Jobs wanted a computer people would have in their homes. But instead of looking at his competitors, he walked through the kitchen appliance isle at Macy’s for inspiration.

In that same chapter, scientists explain to Gallo that another key to kick-starting your brain and get those creative juices flowing is to try new and novel experiences that push you outside your comfort zone and push your interests.

Bloggers For Malaysia

Okay, here's the deal. There are some SoPo bloggers who have a nose for scoops. They are sniffers. Their exposes have helped to democratise and level the field of information dissemination.

Most of the stuff is raw. And, that's why we love it.

There are other SoPo bloggers (like me) who are plodders. We like to scratch our private parts and take our time to stare at scenery. And, when we do write, it is often prolix and painful to read.

But, being bloggers, we are collectively seen as an alternative medium to the conventional media.

I was pretty gobsmacked when I heard from Syed OutSyedTheBox that Rais was on the warpath against Rocky, Big Dog and Taikors & Taikuns for having the temerity to raise questions about his Ministry.

The first thought was, naturally, that I thought these bloggers were UMNO-BN-leaning types. Weren't they on the same side?

Upon reflection, these bloggers do have the "bad habit" of regularly questioning matters of poor governance in UMNO, BN and the Government.

How's that different from my blogging? Not much, actually. It's only a matter of the "hardness" of the bite (I wanted to say "degree of acerbity of vitriol". But, that would have put you to sleep).

So, my blogger buddies are being put through the wringer by Rais.

Rais has said that as a citizen, he has the right to lodge a police report against a perceived wrong against him.

That is true. All citizens have that right.

But, this is where Rais gets it wrong. Unlike us mere mortals Rais is a currently serving Federal Minister. Rais is a significant UMNO leader. Rais is part of the BN government. Rais is a politician. Rais has the power of the government.

That power has been used against Rocky and Big Dog.

Just by having the MCMC require these hapless bloggers to attend at the MCMC offices in Putrajaya already causes great distress. Having Rocky's "tool of trade", his beloved Ferrari, seized is equally distressing.

Over and above that, there is the threat of a charge to be framed against them. This will be costly at a personal and financial level.

Being in possession of a Ph.D in Law, Rais may recall the legal expression nemo judex in re causa sua which roughly translates into "a man may not be the judge of his own cause".

The MCMC being in his Ministry, Rais should have actively instructed the MCMC to refrain from investigating his own complaint.

He should have let the Police conduct the investigation.

But, if I were ever asked for any advice by Rais, his Ministry, the MCMC, UMNO or, BN (not that it will ever happen) on whether or not to lodge a complaint on the impugned blog postings, my reply would be the negative of the Nike tagline.

I would have said, "Just DON'T do it".

And, so, I will record here that I intend to register this blog as a willing participant in Bloggers for Malaysia.

1MDB and IDR in the landscape of GTP, NKRA and ETP

I love History. I love it because there is much wisdom in having a context and perspective of how we arrived at where we are. Without knowing History, we will be forever groping in the dark. Not knowing which direction to take. Let's see how this post pans out.

Economics of development

In terms of the economics of development, the role of government is to decide how resources are to be allocated. There has to be a presumption that the resources must be allocated equally. There must also be a corollary rule that equal allocation be subject to merits.

"Merits" in the economic sense must mean the positive impact that such an allocation has on economic development and growth for the whole country.

This positive catalytic effect is termed the "multiplier effect".

Having put out the boring contextual matters let us dive into the issues at hand.

In the 1960s and 1970s, our economic planners were exemplary in identifying foreign investment to generate economic development. We had limited financial resources. We needed foreign money in the form of direct investment.

This meant getting foreign investors to set up shop here.

The name of the game at the time was industrialisation. We had a literate workforce. Wage levels were affordable to foreign investors.

Our economic planners made sure there was ample and reliable utilities in the form of roads, electricity and water supply.

Geography of development

But, beyond this generalisation, I wish to emphasise that our economic planners had to face up to the reality that the foreign direct investments (FDI) being manufacturing-based, needed access to a good supply of workers.

The logical location was Petaling Jaya first. PJ met the criteria. Next was Shah Alam, the logical extension since the direction of growth was towards Port Klang where the manufactured goods could be cost-effectively exported.

In the 1980s, Penang got into the game. The economics and locational principles remained the same.

From industrialisation to knowledge and services-based activities

Fast forwarding into the millennium, we witness the shift in emphasis from industrialisation to knowledge and services-based activities.

The reasons are obvious. Over time, the wages have risen. Industrial activity needs cost-effective wages since the skills of the work is limited and repetitive. Easy to train freshies. Experience is not a factor. That is why industrial FDIs have relocated elsewhere.

This situation is where our country is at. This is what people call the "middle income trap". We have become too expensive for industrial processing. But, we may not be skilled enough to get into creative work that pays well.

Finally, we get to 1MDB, IDR, GTP, NKRA and ETP

You may now ask what the relevance of such a long preamble on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Iskandar Development Region (IDR), Government Transformation Programme (GTP), National Key Results Area (NKRA) and Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) is?

Well, first, I need to say that this post is my way of expiating reasonably sceptical analyses done previously on these self-same matters.

I have felt strongly since Najib's tenure as Prime Minister began that the government has recognised the urgency of the "middle income trap" situation.

I have also felt very troubled that this urgent economic situation has been clouded by the ripple-effect of over-politicisation and power plays.

The message that the rakyat sent on March 8, 2008 was that change is needed. What the nature of the needed change was is something that we can debate until the cows come home.

Economics trumps politics

The takeaway from March 8, 2008 that I am recommending for your consideration is that the rakyat sensed the urgency of dwindling economic opportunities.

I am aware that many of you will not agree with this narrow interpretation. But, if you adopt the Abraham Maslow heirarchy of priorities, I will resoundingly say that economic welfare trumps any other issue in terms of priority. If you are not convinced, I suggest that you read about Mikhail Gorbachev and the perestroika saga.

So, what we have here today, is a set of nebulous principles in the form of GTP, NKRA and ETP.

If we were to take a helicopter to rise above the thicket of nebulous words in the GTP, NKRA and ETP, we may be able to get a better idea of the socio-economic landscape that confronts Malaysia.

Crossroads

We are at a crucial economic crossroad.

Yes, the GTP, NKRA and ETP are imperfect roadmaps. But, I don't have a better roadmap than this. So, yes, I have been prepared all along to buy-in. Of course, my buy-in is done with eyes wide open. That's the whole point of the exercise of buying-in, anyway. As citizens, taxpayers and stakeholders we must not be indolent. We have to be a part of the thought process.

And, what of IDR?

IDR makes geographic sense, I suppose. It's proximity to Singapore means that the chances of its key investment criteria succeeding is that much higher. The key areas of the IDR are:

6 categories of service-based sectors:

• Creative
• Education
• Financial advisory and consulting
• Healthcare
• Logistics
• Tourism

And, of course, the attractive features are:

• Exemption from the Foreign Investment Committee (FIC) rules
• Flexibilities under the foreign exchange administration rules as follows:
  • Make and receive payments in foreign currency with residents;
  • Borrow any amount of foreign currency from licensed onshore and non-residents;
  • Invest any amount in foreign currency assets onshore and offshore; and
  • Retain export proceeds offshore.
• Unrestricted employment of foreign knowledge workers
• Eligibility for tax incentives

The tax incentives are:

• Exemption from corporate income tax for a period of 10 years in respect of statutory income derived from qualifying activity carried out within the approved node for customers situated within the approved node and outside Malaysia or wholly for customers outside Malaysia. Such activities must commence on or before 31 December 2015; and
• Exemption from compliance with the withholding tax provisions on payment of royalty and services fee to non-residents for a period of 10 years from commencement of operations.

And, what of 1MDB?

Well, from my previous postings you will, no doubt, have gotten an idea of my concern about the debt edifice of 1MDB.

Be that as it may, I do wish for the Sungei Besi Airport redevelopment and KL Financial District projects to be successful.

Here comes the reason for my long preamble.

In a sense, the 1MDB projects can be seen as the present day equivalent of the industrial parks of past decades. Where industrial parks were meant to house and cluster manufacturing concerns, the 1MDB projects are intended to house services-based concerns. This is consistent with the ETP goals, I suppose.

And, I am making a strong assumption that to ensure the financial viability of the 1MDB projects, there will be IDR-like incentives in the pipeline. And, like IDR, the incentives will be legislated by Parliament and decreed by MIDA.

Calling the Klang Valley "Greater KL" is, I suppose, a branding exercise to the global customer base. I have no problems with that just as most of us have no problems with the KLIA being called KLIA even though it is in Sepang. It's about global branding.

Two key takeaways for you

All the foregoing is intended to lead to 2 points that I wish to make:

• First, how about extending the IDR-type incentives to the whole country?
• Second, how about (here I go again) reducing the corporate and personal income tax rate to 18%?

What a stimulus and seriously positive economic multiplier these will have on the whole country.