Europe's Final Countdown

"As much as I hate this fatass ..."

... I still think that his article is a brilliant piece of work. Lack of political integration despite unified monetarily speaking, the fallibility and reflexivity of modern economic theories; without understanding the problem - just some of the issues plaguing Europe.

Time's running out!

Grow Up Greece!

"Cage them! Cage them now!"

To be a single nation or not to be? That is the question.

In order to answer this question, another question must be answered beforehand - would Greece be able to pay off their debts? Clearly, the answer is no. Knowing thism Greeks must unite and take the necessary measures in oreder to contain their financial problems - but the problem is even the citizens themselves don't know who to elect. Reason being? All the candidates speak of austerity measures which is extremely unpopular with the public.

Are fucking retarded?

Its high time that you put a sock in it after years of binge spending. You want to tell me you're unwilling to cut down your spending? Isn't that a bit childish? Look at how Koreans were willing to give their personal gold during the Asian Financial Crisis 97/98 just to help their country to get out of the debts in which those IMF & World Bank assholes put them into.

Get your act together retards!

Miracle of The Han River; South Korea

I dont think that'll be enough for him

This is mainly a compilation article about some of the interesting articles I've found about South Korea. We'll start with the latest one I found off of a Korean Newspaper. This was relating to the current level of debt being taken out by individuals, corporations and the government. To be frank though, I don't think its nowhere alarming yet, but for some reason they're starting to freak out over it. Logically, for any export oriented country who wishes to turn its economy into more of a domestic consumption based structure, then obviously you'll need to debt to rise to generate retail sales. However, for some reason, I think Korea's rising debt is more related to its rising living expenses rather than a showcase of increase in domestic consumption. Now if that was the case, it could be something noteworthy.

The second article I read was actually a compilation of McKinsey; featuring a 6 articles each with its distinctive topic of focus. The first one elaborates on how South Korea spends more on Research & Development Per GDP compared to other advanced nations. The second article touches on Korea's resilient economy with the third talking about its national brand. The fifth details on how Korea should start shifting its economy to a service-based economy, and finally, a four step guide on how Korea can propser further in the future. Rather interesting, but I still think they still lack China's manpower, and Japan's technological superiority over them, not to mention how I think that the people in the region lack English proficiency; an essential component in becoming a globalized economy. But then again, English is without a doubt over-rated.

Annyeong!

The Seperated States of America

Anyone up for putting on some duct tape?

So Obama’s new stimulus plan has been criticized. Big deal. He knew it was going to happen, Congress knew about it, even the people would’ve expected it. Based on the proposal in which he will table to Congress, the new stimulus package is meant to address the issue on high unemployment while increasing domestic consumption at the same time. So how will the USD$ 447 billion stimulus package be funded? Through one off cuts from the Healthcare programmes, as well as “limiting deductions for upper middle income earners”; in other words, taxing the rich.

The so called “Buffet Rule” (with reference to Warren Buffet), I don’t think this would much a very attractive package, particularly in the eye of politicians since apparently a significant number of the House of Representatives and The Senate are meant to be millionaires? But it seems like the Republicans are much more resistant towards the idea of reshuffling the budget to spend more rather than being taxed. There’s also the matter of the effectiveness of Obama’s plan; some find it to be “non-progressive” in nature since the stimulus package is funded through one-off cuts rather than a complete overhaul on the American fiscal structure. Frankly, I couldn’t agree more on this claim.

We all know that stimulus packages are a double-edged sword; it helped them pull through the 2008 without dragging the whole world with them (but no politician will get credited for actions he took which avoided catastrophes; people have a short memory) but we’ve also seen countries like Japan pull of a number of programmes which has done nothing to help to put their economy back on track (putting both their macro and microeconomic characteristics aside that is). From Obama’s point of view, pulling an austerity stunt would without a doubt drive the American economy straight off into the Recession river. So would this measure help save them?

As much as I hate to say this, I don’t know.

Government Subsidies; Helping or Spoiling

Can you blame them for leaving?

I was sitting outside having a smoke and enjoying a cup of coffee while writing a University Assignment for my Chinaman friend (which he paid me to do), somehow I drifted off about thinking about the level of competition in Malaysia. Then I recalled about this one article which I read in The Star about how Malaysia is stuck in the middle-income trap, and if the government changed certain policies, future developments would soon ensue. One of the policies which the article suggested changing was government subsidies.

But wait, aren't subsidies meant to help people? Millions of Malaysians can buy rice, sugar, and more importantly petrol, at much lower rates compared to our neighboring countries? Wouldn't it be better to help our poor economy if the government kept subsidizing shit and feed it straight into our pie-holes? I came up with a perfect illustration on the effects of the government subsidies. Let's make things simpler, and look at it from a different angle;

Assume you have a kid, old enough to talk. Now as he grows, you'll need to continue feeding him, and pay his share of housing costs, utilities, school or university fees, parking tickets, and in some cases, you inadvertently give your kids money to go clubbing or buy drugs. When the time comes, he'll graduate, gets his own job, and you stop paying his fair share of costs; although this depends exactly on when he moves out. So as a parent, you want your kids to grow up, get a job, and stop depending on you right?

Don't you think Malaysian's are at a stage where they're old enough to get a job, so that our parents (our lovely government) don't have to subsidize (pay) for our living costs anymore? If you keep giving money to your kids, wont they end up being too dependent on you?

And more importantly, why are they subsidizing retarded things? The logic of subsidizing things, to me, is to help things grow, develop, and mature (e.g. Transportation, Renewable Energy, Education). So let's take a look of the things in which the government subsidizes;

1. Rice - For what purpose? I'm pretty sure without subsidy it would still be affordable. Did the government want us to eat a lot of rice and end up being fat, then die from obesity, depriving the government the ability to tax us?

2. Sugar - It's sweet for the government to do so, but I think Malaysian's should also taste the bitter side of life. Does more sugar intake result in an increase in economic development? Does more intake result in better employment, higher education, or technological development? No. It results in deaths, and one less person to pay taxes to the government.

3. Petrol - The heart of the global economy. I can understand the subsidy from a commercial perspective, so why not subsidize trucks or commercial vehicles only? Why not fix it at a certain percentage to the market price? Cheaper petrol results in more cars (obviously profiting Perodua and Proton, especially Petronas) but it also creates an environment where citizens dont pressure the government enough to develop a more efficient Public Transportation system (e.g. South Korea and Japan). I'm still waiting for the KVMR which the government promised to build 100 years ago.

4. Controlled Prices - Controlling the price of Chicken constricts developer's profits - also a form of subsidy, turning us into cowards or more accurately, we become chicken shit. Beef? Why bother controlling the price of beef? I didn't know that if you control the price of beef, it would have vast effects in developing our intellectual capacity?

I smell corruption.

The effects are simple. When you end up subsidizing bullshit things, the government can't spend effectively to develop a country, resulting us being stuck in the middle income trap, and a butt load of Malaysians moving overseas to countries where they don't subsidize things which a 12 year old would need.

I know most of the things I just said are nothing more than mere rants, but I do know that some of it is true and factual; so now we know about it, what do we do with it?

America's Debt Crisis

"Investors won't learn much new from S&P's announcement. Politicians should."

Downgrading our politics. The Economist.

Cronny Capitalism In America

Fiscal Indulgences, The Economist.

An article related to America's Fiscal Policy which enacts tax expenditures which favors certain industries, sub-industries, corporations and individuals, being compared to the church's practice in selling indulgences.

I thought only Asians practiced cronny capitalism?

Well, at least thats what the Western Media  taught me.

What a joke.