Bangsar

Bangsar, an exclusive residential area sandwiched between KL and PJ. Nestled closed to most amenities around the city and businesses just off the federal highway and nearby commercial offices at Damansara heights. This area have grown by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years ever since high end high rise condominiums started forming part of the skyline that is Kuala Lumpur today.

Shopping complexes, the likes of BSC, BV and BV2, and its international brands of outlets, clearly seals this place and created an image of elites for the many first class residential buildings that it is now.

A stroll in Jalan Telawi where the many shophouses now occupied by hip restaurants and lifestyle eating outlets including mamak stores, all beckon a sense of exclusiveness. Not forgetting one will get to see as many rare life-savings-income-valued cars, SUV’s, MPV’s and sports car all lined up along the streets with datuk’s and datin’s behind the wheel or on occasions the Ahmad’s and jockeys waiting patiently and loyally for their masters. You just can’t miss this feeling when you are there.

Perhaps this is where big businesses are sealed. Boy meet girl and fall in love and live happily ever after, ala Paris, the city of love. Designer’s clothes, designer’s food, designer’s footwear and anything that cost a month’s paycheck can be termed designer.

Bangsar, dear Bangsar, and it’s residents, with their pedigrees and puppies, felines and canines in toll, that make up the image that it is today:- a success story.

In Bangsar, the bigger the car you drive, the more respect you deserved. So says it on their face when they drive by you. Even the police will hesitate issuing them summons for offences but rather check your status before doing so.

Bangsar, a place where every streets is doubled parked, and I do mean every streets! It is the privilege of one not to walk the distance or patience to find an empty spot.

Bangsar, where the rules don’t applied to the elites when they drive an exotic car. Pedestrian must give way even if they are already on the zebra crossing and better not cross their path. Because they will not surrender to you kuci rats on foot.

Bangsar, shops owners who filled the walkway with their goods and wares so you don’t miss them, or the opportune of getting the maximum visual display to make their business and premises a success. Don’t matter if you are on wheelchairs or crutches, just make sure your driver park right at the shop doorsteps so you don’t need to walk the distance.

Bangsar, a success story with a price, nevertheless. And of course, all the international schooled children, overseas graduates, expatriates and wives and husbands with foreign tongues who made it in life with their refined cultured views of the world, to finally settled in this haven called Bangsar.

Yes minister, show us how?

Cost of living up, quality of life down

Written by Stanley Koh   

This article that we’re reproducing from Free Malaysia Today first appeared in June. However, CPI feels that the article (slightly revised here) is relevant to today’s setting following recent developments and should be read by those who missed it the first time around.

It turns out that the government you voted in will not hold your hand to see you through hard times. Instead, it will make sure to add to your suffering because that is the easiest way it can avoid going bankrupt. Barisan Nasional has apparently decided that the time has come to remove or cut subsidies — the kind of subsidies that poor people depend on, not the kind enjoyed by big corporations and monopolistic suppliers of utilities and infrastructural support.

So what is the use of a government that will eagerly shake your hand during election time but will not hesitate to pull the rug from under your feet when it needs to save itself? Few believe that the removal of subsidies on essential food items and fuels can save the Malaysian government from possible bankruptcy. If it does go bankrupt, it will be because it has failed to cleanse a corrupt system.

It is better for Malaysians to be rich and to control a bankrupt government than to be poor and controlled by a corrupt government. Many countries have rich citizens with bankrupt governments. You do not need an economist to tell you that RM100 in Malaysia today does not buy as much as it did last year.

In what we may call the Malaysian Misery Index, we can see that food prices have been spiralling upwards for years. For example, fresh tenggiri, which was RM13.23 a kilo in 1997, now costs RM40 a kilo. A roasted duck cost RM13.47 in 1997, but is now at least RM38. And Malaysians have become used to the doubling in price of some food items during festive seasons. Most Malaysians do not expect the situation to improve. Food prices will continue to go up and there is little hope that they will come down again.

Two years ago, the BN government announced that it had set up a US$1.25 billion fund to increase food production and that it was targeting 100% self-sufficiency in rice consumption. What has happened to the fund and the target?

Double whammy

When the GST (goods and services tax) is fully implemented in 2011, it will be a double whammy for poor and middle-income households, pensioners, the unemployed and single parents. Some have argued that imposing GST on Malaysians does not make much economic sense when only 6.8% of the population are taxpayers and a large majority earn low incomes. Furthermore, it is acknowledged that most of us are paying hidden taxes in highway tolls and electricity tariffs.

Indeed, the future looks bleak.

Yet, quite a number of us are gullible enough to think that the government will protect consumers. Are we not being stupid? Isn’t it better to be wiser and brace for tougher times ahead? Instead of believing the promises of a government that has a dismal performance record, we should believe the law of inflation, which says, “Whatever goes up will go up some more.” Ronald Reagan once described inflation as a violent mugger, a threatening armed robber and a deadly hit man. In the Malaysian context, that is an apt description not of inflation, but of the BN government’s behaviour and policies.

So how do we fight the inflation of food prices?

Economists generally agree that the average Malaysian household spends about 75% of its income on food. Food price hikes will therefore have an adverse impact upon disposable income and force us to make a lifestyle change.

More than half are low-income

Perhaps economist Milton Friedman was right when he said, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara desert, in five years there will be a shortage of sand.” Malaysians do not take the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) seriously. They know it does not accurately reflect price rises in essential foodstuffs. Many suspect that the government uses it as an instrument to deceive the public into thinking that things are hunky-dory when they are not.

The government develops statistics so that the inflation-weary public would direct its hostility towards businesses, and not blame official mismanagement. The average household consumption expenditure over the last 20 years has increased by 181.8%. In 1973, it was RM412. By 1993-94, it had gone up to RM1,161. In 1999, it touched RM1,631.

According to Prof Lim Teck Ghee, real household income has been growing, but at the snail-pace rate of 0.9% per year. More than half of the population are in the low-income category. Today, a family of five spends 50% to 60% of household income on food compared with 20% in 1998 and 15% in 1988. Not long ago, there was official acknowledgement that 95% of families are finding it hard to cope with the rise in food prices.

In fact, the biggest failure of the Ninth Malaysia Plan is that it did not help Malaysians improve their quality of living. Inflation, whether it is imported or locally generated, raises the cost of living and lowers the quality of living.

What ‘lifestyle’ do we have?

In 2006, when Najib Razak was Deputy Prime Minister, he asked Malaysians to change their lifestyle in the face of the rising cost of living. A blogger by the name of Chong wrote in response: “Perhaps, the prime minister should have done some simple calculations himself. People like us basically have no lifestyle, just merely surviving with our earnings. So how are we going to change (our lifestyle)? “Inflation has gone up 4.5% (and above) and the government is pushing the cost of living higher by increasing electricity tariffs, but our income remains the same.”

Others felt it would be easier to change the government than to change a non-existent lifestyle.

“Instead of listening to Najib asking us to change,” one critic remarked, “why not we change the government at the next general election?” To me, that makes a lot of sense. Any government that is willing to build air-conditioned toilets around a city at more than RM100,000 each unit has no business planning a national economy. When such a government decides to cut subsidies, many of us will wonder whether the so-called “savings” will instead go towards more majestic arches, fanciful lampposts, refurbishments of VIP residences, luxurious government bungalows and fruitless overseas trips by ministers.

Any government that stands accused of having wasted RM320 billion in 20 years — through corruption, wastage and mismanagement — definitely does not deserve to be re-elected.

A precarious calm at Tenang

Yet another by-election is in the coming with the death of MP Datuk Sulaiman Taha in the constitution of Tenang in Johor and scheduled on 30 January 2011. While speculations are fueling that the general election might be held either in the first quarter or second quarter of 2011, this latest by-election in Tenang may be the deciding factor for Najib to gauge his standing on the outcome of his popularity.

The significant of this by election including its result hold certain prospect to the ruling government.

Should this be a BN victory, which is their stronghold, this will catapult Najib to pursue an earlier general election in the immediate months to ride on this success and what with the recent survey by Merdeka review of his popular ratings still holding forte at 69%.

On the other hand, if a PKR victory emerged, it will make no different to any outcome in parliament neither does it do any major overhaul to the political landscape that it is now. What PKR will get is only a feel good factor knowing they are gaining some slight grounds over BN in terms of popularity, and that is about all we will get.

Even with an additional seat in parliament, the recent suspension of four PKR MP’s including Anwar himself for six months, even with a win in Tenang, will do little or nothing at all to balance any quota in parliament.

Should BN lose the Tenang by-election, he may just delay the general election further until such a time when he is much much more confident of its results favouring BN.

Should we let this be a lost and gain a bigger win later?

Winners ignored, 5th placers lauded?

by Ooi Chin Wah
Letters
Malaysiakini

The World Robot Olympiad (WRO) is an event for science, technology and education, that brings together youths from all over the world in order to develop their creativity and problem solving skills through challenging and educational robot competitions.

Participating teams need to create, design and build a robot model that looks or behaves like human.

This year the task of organising the competition was given to the Philippines. The Ministry of Education and many private companies in the Philippines jointly sponsored the event.

The steering committee consists of well-known academicians from China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Singapore. 250 teams from 22 countries participated.

There are six gold medals on offer as there are two categories in the competition; the Open category and regular category. Each category is further divided into Elementary (primary school), Junior High (Forms 1 to 3) and Senior High (Forms 4 and 5) categories.

Malaysia won two gold medals, one by the Chung Ling High School (Kampung Baru, Penang Island) for Open Category, Senior High school level, the other by SMK Bintulu for Regular Category, Junior High School level.

This piece of news was reported under the title “Champs once again” in the Nov 14 edition of Star.

But the report is about the team that won the fifth place in the Open Category, Elementary Level. Here is an excerpt from the report:

‘Year Five pupil Muhd Syamil Khairi from SK Wan Ibrahim, Kuala Lipis, Pahang, said he and his two teammates Mohd Ezzameer Fitri and Muhammad Hazimuddin Halif took three months to build their robot which performs an orang asli dance known as the “sewang” with the supervision of their robotic club teacher Mahmud Salleh.’

There is no mention that the team highlighted in the report was awarded the fifth place in the Open Category, Elementary Level.

I can’t help but feeling that the author was trying to give the casual reader an impression that the above said team is the team that will put Malaysia at the top of the world. Was the Chung Ling High School mentioned at all? No.

The SMJK Chung Ling mentioned at the end of the report is in Butterworth. Even SMK Bintulu who won the gold medal was mentioned merely as a participating team. Here is an excerpt from the report”

‘The other teams which represented Malaysia at the olympiad were SMK Bintulu in Bintulu; SMJK Chung Ling, Butterworth; SJKC Chi Man, Kuala Lumpur; SJKC Taman Connaught, Kuala Lumpur; MRSM Kubang Pasu, Alor Setar; SMK Sultanah Hajjah Kalsom, Kuantan; SMJK Jit Sin, Ayer Itam; and Sekolah Sultan Alam Shah, Putrajaya.’