How to Become or Remain an Optimistic Malaysian?

First of all, this is not a guide. No, I’m not divulging 10 or 13 or 21 secret things you should do to become or remain an optimistic Malaysian. Yes, this is really a question. Not what you wanted to read? Well, in the true spirit of 1Malaysia, you tak suka, you keluar (if you don’t like it, you leave).

The long form of the question is as such:

Amidst all the doom and gloom, whether truth or perception, in Malaysia, where does one find that glimmer of hope to remain optimistic about the prospects of this country? 

Personally, I find it difficult when all I see and hear are: one, the economy is going to the shitter; two, to prevent scenario one from materialising, our oh-so-prudent government has little choice but to tax the people more, cut subsidies, raise tariffs, etc. [sic]; three, life is harder for this generation as compared to that of the previous; four, crime is increasingly endemic; five, Malaysian graduates are not worth the piece of paper they call a degree.

Now, bear with me as I run through my concerns one at a time, first being the Malaysian economy. Is it really that bad? In light of the recent sovereign debt rating downgrade from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’ by Fitch, one would have to be smoking something rather potent to think otherwise. The rating downgrade means our government’s promise of paying their debts is starting to look shaky. Therefore, the debts carry a greater risk and in turn should give higher returns. The increase in cost of borrowing discourages investment. What about foreign investment? Well, Malaysia is the only country in the region that boasts a capital outflow. This means there is more money leaving the country as investments than there is coming in. Less investment means less job opportunities or lower employment rate, lower employment rate means less spending power hence smaller aggregate demand, smaller aggregate demand means less incentive to supply or invest. We can already feel the belts tightening as firms are less inclined to expand and hire. 

It is a vicious cycle that the government has yet to address. Despite what PEMANDU claims about attracting investments through the Economic Transformation Programme, the investments are limited to industries such as energy, tourism and healthcare. Manufacturing, the lifeblood of emerging economies (Malaysia being one) was left almost untouched. It would seem that the people in government don’t know what they’re doing. The first lady of Malaysia, on the other hand, has a good idea of what’s going on and has been hard at work attracting investors and transforming Malaysia into a shopping haven.

Where does that leave us? With the world economy in a sluggish recovery from a cyclical downturn and our local economy mired in structural weaknesses, the cracks are starting to surface and we are pretty much, for lack of a better word, fucked.

It is time to close the macroeconomics textbooks and return to a subject more pertinent to our lives – the government and what it’s doing to our pockets. If you haven’t been holed up in a bunker without an internet connection and a radio, you’ve probably heard of the soon to be implemented GST, electricity tariff hikes, subsidy cuts, toll and public transport fare hikes. Why is our government doing this to us? We have been sold two reasons – first being the government’s effort to reduce our budget deficit, second being our federal debt is too large. These reasons have also caused the earlier mentioned Fitch rating downgrade. These are also legitimate reasons for all the rate hikes. However, we must think of the reason we got into this predicament in the first place. It is unbelievably simple. Our government has been spending out of its means. To put it in numbers, as of Q2 2013, our federal government debt is RM519 billion, which has ballooned from RM275 billion or 88.73% since the beginning of the Najib administration.

The solution to this problem is equally simple. Appeal to our patriotic side and make us tighten our belt for the good of the country. Fair enough, it can easily be argued that if we don’t take a graze now, the alternative could be a kick to the gonads in the sense that our economy will descend into oblivion and we’d be far worse off. However, just a quick flashback to the news on the recent auditor general’s report would leave one wondering why should we be bearing the consequences for a government has been and is still continuing to splurge without an iota of prudence. This is further evidenced in our 2014 budget, in which operational expenditure of various ministries continues its upward trend. As GE14 is a long way down the road, it would seem that we haven’t much choice but to play along in this round of hikes and cuts.

My third concern is downward economic mobility. This is the scenario where a generation of people is worse off in terms of income as compared to their predecessors. I bear no shame in saying that it is significantly more difficult to improve one’s economic conditions in this day and age. Sure, many of from our parents’ generation started off with close to nothing but they lived in a time when having an education actually meant being able to secure jobs and it was possible to save money as capital for a business venture and make it big. Today, one should be counting one’s blessings if living costs fall within the bounds of disposable income and personal debt doesn’t accumulate. Heck, we should be high from elation to even be with jobs. Without support from our parents, it is a tall order to break free from the paycheck to paycheck cycle that most of us are trapped in. Coupled with our economy which is on a slippery slope, the future seems incredibly bleak for young Malaysians.

Number four on my list is crime. Despite what the authorities say on falling crime rates and that the rise in crime is all in our heads, we know that crime is prevalent and it’s here to stay. We are constantly bombarded with horror stories about shoppers being slashed and robbed, pedestrians getting concussions as collateral damage of snatch theft, armed robbery in crowded restaurants in broad daylight. It has come to point where living in fear is now the norm in Malaysia. So why is this happening? The answer is pretty obvious. Crime is a high risk, high return investment and although most people wouldn’t resort to crime, they are deprived of alternatives. This again ties back to our dismal economy. At the same time, law enforcement in prevention of crime ranges between lax to non-existent in this country. Knowing that only a small proportion of our police force actually police and most are either doing desk jobs or escorting VIPs around, it comes as no surprise that criminals are on a feeding frenzy. In conclusion, in Malaysia, crime does pay, because everything else doesn’t.

Last but not least is education (or lack thereof). I know most of us do not even pretend to think that our education system is decent. The recently released PISA ranking for Malaysia (52 of 65) just reinforces our perception that the Malaysian education is worth piss all. We are four to five schooling years behind the highest rankers. Four to five years! Our form 5 students are no better than a standard 6 student from China. With our government politicising education and continuously pulling the bar down every year, hiring teachers who don’t know their stuff and instead dumping ludicrous amounts of money on world class management consultants to fix the system, we are well on the way to 65 of 65. 

We know full well that quality education is the long term solution to a better Malaysia. With quality education we will have a quality workforce. However, with a generation of generally mediocre teachers who give substance to the saying ‘those who can’t do – teach’ educating the next generation, it is unlikely that we are heading anywhere but backwards.

So there you have it, Malaysia in a nutshell. Yes, Malaysia is a beautiful country, we are resource rich, we speak better English than people from our neighbouring countries, we have an excellent array of cuisines, we are multicultural [sic], Malaysia is still home, but at the end of the day, when all these are peddled to us with a hot, steaming pile of bovine manure, it doesn't change the fact that our country is going to shits.

Now tell me, in light of these, how does one become or remain optimistic?

Chong Yu Cheng