Prosperity without Growth

1.       All this malarkey about New Growth Model / High-Income Model etc is making me puke. It’s a shameless and misguided call for increasing GDP growth figures so that wealth will create happiness to people.

2.       TDM’s years have actually proven that placing this criteria above all else is mistaken. Back at the peak of the Asian crisis, our GDP growth figures held up reasonably compared to our peers, but that’s because of pump-priming, aka let’s build beautiful buildings in Putrajaya so that we can tell the world how we’ve got it made, and **** the masses cos the spillovers will benefit them. Fast fwd to now, and we have a country building up its debt levels with all these continuous deficit budgets, increased crime, fractured society and blameworthy politicians from both divides. While I’m being disingenuous if I were to blame all these problems to the construction of Putrajaya, I’d like to venture that that was a manifestation of spend to create growth, for GDP growth is the penis envy affliction of some country’s economic administrators.

3.       And here we are repeating the same mistakes with the NGM / MIM thing, and this SWF is lending its full support to execute this.

4.       What we need is a leader who knows that life in Dunya is only as preparation for the Hereafter, but this life in Dunya needs to sustain a happy, sustainable lliving for all. And again, this philosophy is superbly, comfortably captured in the Quran.

5.       The following extracts bring recency to this argument, although intuitively I sense certain gaps are missing as it’s still looking into merely “worldly” things, but it’s a fantastic start, and ideologues for Islamic economics would do well to pick this up.

Source: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/public-data/files/happy-planet-index-2-0.pdf

Excerpts from the report:

“To maintain growth, Western capitalist economies have a structural need to sustain demand for consumption.72,73,74 But this feature of the system sets it at odds with a widely noted fact about human nature – that once our basic material needs are comfortably met, more consumption tends to make little difference to our well-being. This is not just folk wisdom, although it is certainly the case that throughout history, and across all cultures and religions, people have cautioned against an excessive focus on wealth and material possessions. Research suggests that in most reasonably developed countries, material circumstances such as wealth and possessions play only a small role in determining levels of happiness – some psychologists estimate that they explain only around 10 per cent of variation in happiness at the aggregate level.75 Beyond a certain level of income, increasing wealth makes little difference.76 Much more significant are factors relating to individual differences in outlook and to the kinds of activities that people engage in: socialising, participating in cultural life, having meaningful and challenging work and so on.

But the requirement to maintain consumption growth at all costs has led to a situation in which, for decades, we have been presented with a poisonous combination of messages. First, we are constantly bombarded with messages from advertisers and marketers, all pushing the idea that buying this or that new product will make us happier. Added to this, in many countries we have been offered staggeringly easy access to credit with which to keep up our level of consumption. Quite apart from the environmental impacts, this has served us very poorly in a number of ways.

For one thing, levels of debt have soared in recent years; in 2007 and 2008, for the first time on record, UK personal debt exceeded total GDP.77 As recent research from the Institute of Psychiatry in London shows, debt is a large contributing factor to a person’s chances of developing clinically significant anxiety and depression, largely irrespective of their income.78 It is not hard to imagine why this might be. The stress of working just to keep up repayments is exhausting, the fear of defaulting constant and gnawing, and that’s without having to deal with the feelings of despair and inadequacy for having failed.

But there is also a more subtle and no less damaging aspect to all this focus on personal consumption. People who are strongly motivated by the idea of getting rich and famous are what psychologists refer to as materialistic. Using an engaging metaphor, psychologist and author Oliver James describes them as having caught the ‘affluenza’ virus.79 The scientific evidence for the negative impacts of materialism is overwhelming; they range from poorer personal relationships through fewer good moods and lower self-esteem, to increased prevalence of psychological symptoms.80 In short, people whose main aspiration is to be wealthy are inclined to be less satisfied with their lives in general than those who focus their energies elsewhere.81 What is worrying, but perhaps unsurprising, is the extent to which materialism is on the rise. Figure 2 shows data from an annual survey of college students in the USA. The proportion of respondents feeling that being very wealthy is important has doubled since the early 1970s, with a concomitant decrease in the number considering a meaningful philosophy in life to be important.”

Pian Sukro, JDC, School, Pajam and Family

I’m trying my darndest to fill my head with execution-minded stuff now, not the variety with guns or rolling heads, but of the action-oriented, operational variety. At the same time I also try to justify these actions, so it’s a case of filling the gap between stimulus input and feedback, and where there is a more intimate, rolling-the-options-in-the-head justifications to the action. (although, from past records, a lot more, will end up as inaction)

1.       Pian Sukro

I read the report of his very much untimely and premature death this morning with sadness, but Allah knows best. I have the fullest respect for him as a CEO and a leader. Even then I know I may have maligned or disparaged him with my rather indisciplined tongue when discussing TNB or the energy industry with colleagues or fellow discussants, deep down it is nothing but respect.

He had the foresight to execute capex-heavy investments like SAP, the BCG-advised T7 program – the TNB transformation strategy and from which Che Khalib benefitted greatly from and many others. These were the sort of stuff that was needed to be done to drag TNB out of the morass, not merely some financial paper shifting thing. (although Izzaddin did superbly – the best CFO TNB has ever had by a long mile!)

By the by, this is Malaysia, the land of compromises, half-actions, negotiated truths, half-half measures, and there could be a lot more things he could have done were he not constrained by the political and business masters that we all somehow consented to have power over us. All things considered – he did great.

May Allah rest his soul and consider his actions as amal maaruf, and grant him the company of the solehun and mukminun. Al-fatihah to Allahyarham Pian Sukro.

Note – and hopefully the Energy Commission can find someone just as capable (or even better, though unlikely) to replace him,

2.       JDC

Attended my first JDC meeting on Friday night. My first thoughts – strong cliques among the committee arising from the closeness in age and “batch” – and hopefully not too strong a groupthink, there are shades of SPU about the discussion there. IMO we should be thinking strongly of strategic moves to enhance our presence in Cheras, the impressive developments in Balakong and the surrounding Cheras Selatan are good developments we should ride on. Societal changes etc are also opportunities to be considered, and we should refrain from taking the easy way out of doing things. Ie more of Penang and Azlishah’s PJ than the current mindset. Not taking anything away from them, it was my first 2 hours with this group, and I should keep an open mind and share, contribute as necessary. My groupmates were (by seating arrangement) Najib, Zul, Faisal, Ust Zul, Nazeli, Susilawati, Rosliya, Zaini, Amirul. Personal preparation and planning should help – ie towards contributing to the most optimal portfolio.

3.       School and Little Azhar

How strategic are education-related initiatives towards societal change? VERY! Preschool education should very much be allowed to proliferate towards their desired niches to target towards the relevant societal preferences, as long as it retains its fundamental Islamic outlook. (for those who take issue with Fundamentalist Islam, start researching this subject and don’t be swayed by the Internet and Wikipedia too much – start asking the right people) Daerah should have a say in the running of these preschools – preferably post of TPSM should be automatically a Board member of Education institutions to anchor the debates and discussions in realistic societal-centric strategies. And from there, demand for Islamic oriented schools can be cultivated and nurtured and thence a stronger Islamic educational institutional can be anchored to rival the Kuen Chengs of the world. Then, all this nonsense espoused by the goblog Oi Jeff can be effectively challenged.

4.       Pajam

How can it be to develop agriculture in Pajam be the best option 3 weeks ago and suddenly turn into lets sell this to this Datuk at any cost? Unsurprising that the outcome is like this when nobody is coming forward to support Mak and she’s the one wracking her brains to solve her problem of asset management, and she also sees this as doing a favour for her children who she sees as incapable of handling their problems. Admittedly, I am the one who should be doing this, but past experiences are just holding me back. I’m not keen to help my sisters by helping Mak, and she’s not likely to favour me by bypassing my sisters. So the cycle continues.

IMO it’s still a long call to sell – it takes someone either not business-savvy or a bit mad to purchase Pajam at the inflated prices being pushed by the owners (Mak and Zadi being the ones rational on the pricing, leaving the other as the irrational one) – and feasibly Datuk could be one of those. Couple that with his interest to develop this “friendship” and this could be a good call to solve Mak’s perennial problem. Otherwise, I should still keep the option for developing in the backburner.

5.       Family

And here lies the rub. To do all that I’ve said should be done above needs me to exercise my independent outlook on life and I feel my options before have restrained rather than unleashed my options. Although OTOH when I’m left to make my own calls, I’ve been railroaded into making all the wrong decisions anyway.

But, hard choices, decisions, and finally action! Need to put my easel frame into action now!

Assortments

1.       Nightmare / Premonition

The message was stark and clear – I continue with this tomfoolery / monkeying / misbehaviour and all that impacts on iman and taqwa levels, and I am at the very end of the boundary of practicing muslims. The image of joining Friday prayers only for tasyahhud just before salam and just slightly better than the deceiving people at the back who are laughing, joking their way contrasts with the image of the thousands of muslims performing prayers with khusyu’ and devotion to Allah.

Point is to be fully absorbed in all my actions hereafter.

 

2.       4^th consecutive defeat for Liverpool

There are now calls for his head. Ridiculous! But there have been too many ridiculousness in the decision-making these past few years to suggest that it cannot happen. In my own opinion, Rafa should be given the space to work – he has proven he can overcome adversity, errors, poor decision-making and he has not shown tobe big enough not to admit his poor judgment. What better criteria can you place upon people attempting to compete with better-endowed rivals other than those above? Of course, this is also a results business, and if results cannot be sustainably be achieved, he should go. But there needs to be a calmer response to the situation, and perhaps the return of G&T will help to turn this around.

 

On the other hand, what this has shown is how much we have overachieved given the resources available, and it is a credit to Rafa that we are performers in the CL (as compared to Mourinho’s Inter, and Chelsea’s records over the past 5 years with equivalent or better resources, and I would think ManU’s CL win and runnerup in the past 5 years is comparable to Rafa’s record) It is in the league that he has fallen short, and unfortunately when expectations are higher this year following last season’s extremely strong finish, the transitory stage this year has pulled down results. To reiterate, Rafa needs time to turn things around, given Alonso’s departure and injuries to key personnel – and I include Aquilani in this as he IS the replacement for Alonso, given that he was the guy we purchased with the money from Alonso’s sale.

 

Failure to get a result against ManU will be painful – but if the performance resembles Lyon’s and Sunderland’s 2^nd half, it can only accelerate Rafa’s departure. There are pretty irrational people in Anfield these days – including the booing terrace-goers (IMO they are not fans)

 

3.       Insider trading at Galleon and McKinsey partner implicated

Following on from the impatient and amoral people theme, (although I had not included G&H in the Liverpool theme above considering their promises upon their takeover), the Rajaratnam?, Sri Lankan founder of the largest tech hedge fund, Galleon, is implicated in insider trading deals in 2007. Also implicated is an Indian national Anil Kumar, a partner in McKinsey.

 

These are hedge funds, already an amoral speculative financial instrument with too much power for its own good coming from its ability to leverage other people’s money manifold. How can something speculative such as this be allowed to operate given its power to move markets isn’t an inherent strength, but rather, built on greed on profit-making. Hence, their trade is based upon using derivative instruments to manage risks, and the nature of the beast is that they will continue to speculate and bend rules to make money for their funders / investors. The surprise is that it has taken this long to implicate one in an insider trading scandal- and that too using wiretaps. That should leave the financial analysts / stockbrokers / fund managers who’s been doing for too long running scared.

 

If I sound a bit bitter about it, perhaps I am. Engineers, and those in the professional services dealing in the real economy has been getting a raw deal from these market-movers getting a slice out of the billions sloshing around through insanely unregulated ways. It’s about time, although I should add that the law will take its natural course and clear those who are innocent.

 

4.       Work and technology

Speaking of tech, I should limit myself to Ind Biotech from here onwards. Otherwise, it’s just too large an elephant to swallow. But having said that, looking beyond my scope, I also seek to deepen my interest in RE, Education and Agriculture. And all these require a bit more than just passing remarks here and there – there should be real commitment and deep interest to sustain this. Hedghogs will also require that there is an execution emphasis for all these!

 

5.       Leadership stresses and faultlines

Conflicts in my departmental meetings are rare given how monotonously monologue it has been – but it’s interesting when personal attacks are allowed in this meeting. At the same time, I feel that it is a bit shallow to attack people for not meeting, there is probably a bit more than that which meets the eye, and there are probably underlying circumstances which demand that changes will have to be made. I’m an optimist – I expect big changes to happen in the next 6 months. Or maybe, I should make that I’m suddenly depressed about things now!

 

 

Initial thoughts on scenarios

1.       It appears that there is general acceptance of the mediocrity of the Malaysian economic growth story amongst the policymakers, and there is general readiness to embrace the change. Without the chest-thumping of politicians, “omphaloskepsis” or navel-gazing has turned to a somewhat muted and pessimistic outlook.

2.       So where to now? Ideas of a high-growth model to bring us out of the income trap has surfaced, though it is noted perhaps more of the rhetorics of grandeur it generates rather than any solid substantial plans as of this moment. Perhaps it is still early stages, but when government ministers seem to be preoccupied with their personal KPI setting for what they have done before, and rather mundane NKRAs that it’s looking at currently, who’s looking at what to do next? EPU and MOF seems to be focusing on hot to replace ‘loss’ of Bumiputra rights and what to do with a shiringking treasury. Personally, someone mentioned in the KMF recently that Stiglitz and Sen has proposed a different set of measures to look at growth and progress, and it should be one where the general betterment of the populace should be prioritized, and I do agree with this view wholeheartedly.

3.       Back to my own scope – tech and biotech. I’d think that our success in this area, with expectations of this being the focal point of the economic growth story, is important. While personally I think the expectations are rather overblown, mainly from the perspective that there has been limited domestic success models currently, and growth potential is curtailed by our lack of capacity amongst technocrats, scientists, investors, researchers and financiers.

4.       However, looking forward, success is predicated on three dimensions – execution capability, funding capacity and sustainable demand pipeline. We could perhaps draw four discrete scenarios across these soft drivers, (as opposed to predetermined hard drivers of ageing population, oil / gas shocks, etc):

-          Green: successful coevolution of the three critical development factors outlined above

-          Dry wells: progress on a global front, but we’re left further behind as we fail to leverage our execution and funding capacity-building

-          Desert: global pipeline dries up as countries ramp up their domestic focus in the face of sluggish global economic conditions, and while decoupling may not be realised, but effectively demonstrated through raised trading barriers

-          Status quo: we plod along, celebrate the little successes which come our way, overcome the little curveballs that gets thrown into our path ever so regularly by our regulators, partners and businesses

5.       Preparation across all four scenarios entails:

-          Continuous engagement and mobilization of the various entities and stakeholders in this Greening project\

-          Engaging private financiers and incorporating their acceptance of biotech as an asset class early

-          Remodeling and incentivizing local and foreign players to step up into the Malaysian-centric perspective

-          Finalising and creating buyin of LS subsectors that the country would need to participate in

Assortments

Taman Desa, Kuen Cheng and Menara IGB

1.       I’m impressed with the Chinese community’s strengths in business and finance after looking at these three, hardly iconic, but manifestations of their expertise and community teachings.

2.       Taman Desa is a township with heavy Chinese features – where trading and commerce in heavy services and machinery is all too prevalent, presumably began and continued since mid19th century. Kuen Cheng is a private Chinese primary school, whose buildings and layout is more reminiscent of a tertiary level malayish IPTS with some government backed institution, and MEnara IGB sits across TNB headquarters, where over 10 years it has grown to a fantastic self-contained commercial city generating revenue and with a high multi-storey building housing the IGB hq.

3.       The Malays would be hard-pressed to replicate this, but again, the question is, what is the inherent strength of the Chinese? I would hazard that it’s the community’s ability to stand on the shoulders of giants, to cooperate and to consolidate.

 

 

 

No more middle ground

1.       Take a look around Malaysia, and we can no longer be certain that peace can be sustained for any given time now. Although that previous remark seems to be too much of an alarmist note, I’m fairly certain the continued polarization of opinions in the political sphere will soon spill over to society. The signs are evident – Buah Pala, Beng Hock, Kartika and Section 23. It is a very worrying trend.

2.       The questions to ask will be: what now? The causes need to be diagnosed, and strong, willful action is required from everyone. Sanity has to be made to prevail.

3.       Causes are too many – misplaced tolerance to allow vernacular education, and thereby breeding suspicion and envy from the different races and preventing true assimilation to happen; continued racial-based politics where parties practiced racial-based assistance; policies that continued to breed segregation after almost 40(?!) years of the New (!?) Economic Policy, and misunderstandings on religiosity allowed to fester and create all these undercurrents of prejudice and hate.

4.       Singling out the NEP from the above list, I suppose it does have its merits in the first place, where Malay envy at the well-endowed economic strength of the Chinese culminated in the 13^th May tragedy. Listening to Mak’s stories, the fear that existed then could be felt for a long time to come, where even Abah was prepared to take up arms. The NEP was a necessary affirmative action tool to enhance the status of an economically marginalised majority. If we could agree that if there could be only one mandate of a government, then it is to dispense justice, and this was fully justified to elevate the level of a weak majority while preserving and not necessarily forcing the Chinese to give up their property.

5.       At some point in time, however, the policy has outlived its usefulness. The bitter truth now is that it has created a complacent and ineffective Malay-dominated government machinery – whose instincts after being honed on the NEP for so long is to shepherd resources, funds and energy to Malays, to the chagrin of other also marginalised peoples who now begin to question the integrity and honesty of the Government.

6.       While this almost certainly is a critical factor, the voice of the opposition to this is being shaped and led by an empowered Christian zeal. Tricia Yeoh wrote today on the issues relating to the ethnic problems in recent times, almost seemingly railroading readers and pinpointing all blame to Malays. She’s not alone. Almost all malfunctioning government machinery, MACC – despite it still being in its infancy, is being slaughtered mercilessly. All these biased comments spark an almost similar escalation of indignation from Malay “ultras” – who resent the fact that UMNO, the last bastion of the NEP, is under such savage attack and is now considering and already has in some respects scaled back the effects of the NEP.

7.       To people like Tricia, although they will almost certainly deny it – read the comments on the blogs, or follow Jeff Ooi who is not exempt from public scrutiny, it is quite clear they will place the blame on Malays, while promoting their own values. No matter that Malaysia was built on such Constitutional grounds that there will always be a Malay-Muslim polity at the very highest levels in the form of the Malay Sultans, Malays are the majority now and will be an even bigger majority in the near future judging by the birth-rates (notwithstanding the fact that some of the Malay babies end up in the tongs, flushed down toilets, but that’s another story) and many are uncomfortable with this secularist tendencies, the “educated” Malay liberals excepted.

8.       Meanwhile the objectives of the Malay Ultras are clear – create uncertainties on the political will to carry out further scaling back of the NEP or prepare to face their wrath. Opposition is unlikely to back down either, so thus, the war will be fought now on the societal battlefront.

9.       It’s time to stand guard, and pick your side. There is no middle ground in this battle.

 

 

 

sombre mood - mid-life crisis

On some days, when the mood really gets you down, there isn’t much that we can do. Today is such a day.

I’ll need to clarify my thinking on a number of issues.

JDC and position

1. Increased responsibility with this position in JDC. The objective must be clear from the onset – what do I hope to achieve. One, of course, is mardhatillah through subscribing myself as a haraki worker. Secondly, this is also a position where my role is best identified through negotiating the best position to do it in, and how to bring out the better facets of what I can contribute towards. In that respect, assertiveness is a virtue. Thirdly, scrap this personal developmental agenda, cos at this stage the output required far outstrips the need for development, although I am at no point in tome demeaning its potential benefits. It’s just that, in this mindset of achieving the best, tarbiyyah is to be achieved through the means available, so hence, academically should be through university courses or such like, physical through setting up networks, mental and spiritual through personal struggle against my own vices. Although, be on the lookout for role modeling and social support systems.

Pathing away – time for pause and reflection

2. motivation to continue work in this swf environment is fading away. If I don’t obtain an offer from B or cant finalise my exit options soon, I’ll be found out, or worse, I’ll find myself unable to handle the stresses with the gaping conflicts I’ll need to resolve within myself. Partly, I’d also need to overcome risks – particularly relating to financial support should this fail to work itself out. DBA is a nice getout clause though, one in that it provides a nice excuse to be out of the system, but the issue remains – what do I intend to do later? First things first is to face the cold hard truth, the dirty, naked facts of what is required to find the bloody hedgehog. This is a time for wisdom, not some ill-judged rash decision I’vebeen guilty on a number of occasions already.

Raya prep

3. This and other stuff that I’d need to do. Get your butt of the bloody chair and start doing some real work!

Insights

4. And then there is this insight, that not only is this CV masking deficiencies, it is a puton with its fancy titles and awards - but what counts most is what you do with it, what impact do you have upon society, etc! personal motivation to succeed is paramount, regardless of which perspective you take - the difference being as a muslim, the personal motivation is framed upon our religious beliefs.