Another Brick in the Wall

The past three mornings, we have been glued to CNN to follow the pre-election Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Thanks to satellite TV and Internet we can today follow LIVE an event we could only follow on American TV in America 35 years ago.

The Democrat had always appeal to us over the Republican. If we did continue grad school in Boston and work in the States, we could be taking up US citizenship like some Malaysian friends are doing now and politically be Democrat.

The sceptic usually say it makes no difference as to who is the President because it is the Israeli and big business lobbyist that determine policies. The election does not matter.

However, this year's election is different.

The election this Fall (or autumn as the Brit would call it) could elect the first woman President. After 240 years of independence in 1776, there is that chance for another glass ceiling for woman broken at the highest office in the most powerful nation in the world.

While we kid about woman drivers and their bad habit, soon there will be a Madam President that dictate the policies of the world. Knell to the driver.

The American could finally allow a woman to hold the highest office in the country. Something the British, German and New Zealand had done. Our south continent neighbours in India, Sri Lanka, Bangla Desh and Pakistan had done so long ago.

Hillary Clinton looks good on paper. Her opponent Donald Trump, is the most politically incorrect, self-centred and disgusting human demigod. She is leading the polls but still yet to be a runaway winner.

Trump is within striking zone and any of his salesman trick could swing it and win. Hillary and her democratic party has still much work to do. Constant demonising of Trump during the convention maybe the much needed publicity for Trump.

A lesson to be learn from Malaysia is BN's endless attack on Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim that did not turned for the better but Pakatan Rakyat had the majority of popular vote. A 5% swing in popular votes and it could be the end for BN.

Following the DNC is not to make commentary about it, but to learn, to understand where we slack and where we can emulate to improve our politics to be more mature and rational.

Having Donald Trump as the candidate to represent the Republican is not representative of the maturity and rationality of America's expansive and complex politics. Thus the choice to follow the DNC closely over RNC. Trump blew it in Cleveland last week..

We've selected quite a few speeches in the past three days before Hillary's scheduled finale speech tomorrow.

The agenda are different and in certain areas may not come well with our eastern culture, however Malaysian politicians should learn much from listening to their speeches. The way they deliver their speeches to touch the heart, inspire, and invigorate the audience with the most appealing fact and story.

The creativity they approach the subject to promote Hillary is astonishing. All done with openness and embrace of civil liberty, freedom and diversity.

It is all about issues.

The much talked about speech for the past 3 days must have been that of First Lady, Michelle Obama.

She expressed her aspiration as a mother for her children and future generation American intertwined with her praises for Hillary Clinton.

Her words "When we go low, we go high" could be something not only American but Malaysian to emulate towards a more mature and rational politics.

Before her on the first day was Cory Booker:

For those unfamiliar with the young black senator, that was eschewing history in which in Malaysia, only Tun Mahathir was capale of delivering, he was introduced by gorgeous actress Eva Longoria:

Some of our own actress forgot the date for Merdeka when asked on TV...

And Elizabeth Warren is a strong supporter of Hillary:

The sensation for this primaries season must be 75-year old sensation from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. He closed the first day:

Bernie's left leaning democratic socialist ideology created the political revolution that caught the American imagination and got his anti-corporate America agenda heard on the most unlikely platform of mainstream American political party.

Bernie's supporters have been most vocal and visible throughout the convention militantly demanding him to be nominated. They claim conspiracy within the part hierarchy to ensure Hillary's win. And we thought only Tengku Adnan does such stuff.

Clinton offered an olive branch to undertake a joint declaration with Bernie. In turn, it was Bernie who officially nominated Hillary as Democratic party candidate. President Barrack Obama endorse Bernie this morning with his "feel the Bern" comment.

It may appease them for a while. At the time of writing, there are report that Bernie had turned independent despite expressing preference and urging his supporters to vote Hillary over Donald.

The second days was still was about bridging with the Bernie supporters:

One of my favourite satirist on Saturday Nite Live is now a Senator from Minnesota, believe that!

The second day had former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright:

The highlight must be Bill Clinton:

"I met a girl ..." resonates the classic "To kill a Mocking Bird" as he weave in the past achievement of Hillary in between his life story together with Hillary to the bedazzled crowd. In one stroke, he dispel all allegation on Hillary with the punchline "real change maker".

Actress Merryl Streep can still hold her own over the politician in public speaking at a political rally:

The third day was pack with power as we heard Former Secretary of Defense and Congressman, Leon Panetta:

Former Republican mayor turned Independent Michael Bloomberg:

Vice President Joe Biden:

Vice President candidate, Tim Kaine:

Finally, President Barrack Obama:

A speech that inspire and gave hope. He dispel Donald Trump's make America great again to claim America is still great and we need to make America greater as he admit he still need work to done. Off course, it will back track if the leadership is not passed to Hillary.

Hillary is due to speak tomorrow morning. DNC coverage by CNN begins around 8:00 AM Malaysian time.

An argument broke out over teh tarik one night at Wangsa Maju's NZ mamak shop. A friendly one between old chums.

It started out when one of the attendee passed a remark that if a military coup were to happen in Malaysia, one will not find a situation of people coming out to defend Dato' Najib as happened in Turkey.

The discussion eventually developed into a debate with the preposition: After the Turkey military coup, it will be Malaysia's turn for a military coup. An electronic engineer, mathametics professor, and a building contractor on the affirmative (or pencadang as known in school) side. A retired banker, on-vacation diplomat and architect on the negative (or pembangkang).

Losing side pay for the bill. Except that the debate was already starting before a judge could be selected.

Using his deductive ability, the mathematics professor viewed that the only option left for Tun Dr Mahathir to bring Dato Najib down fast enough is through a military coup. He failed to topple Najib via UMNO General Assembly, vote of no confidence in Parliament, and allegedly through illegally formed "Special Taskforce".

He couldn't amass the million signature for his Citizens' Declaration. In fact, CD has faded and the formation of a new political party was a new story to keep his cause burning. His call for a million political rally to call Najib's resignation will not happen.

Thanks or no thanks to the red shirt, last weekend's call for rally did not happen. The referendum he called for will not happen.

There is no constitutional provision for such. Mahathir will never get an audience to see Agong. PM does not need to block. The Malay rulers aren't interested. They cannot forget the two constitutional crises Mahathir orchestrated to curb rulers power.

If he has no patience to wait for the general election, then he will pursue a military coup. That is if he still has the cloud in the military.

The diplomat, who has some understanding of military, argued that the Malaysian military establishment is not tuned for military coup. Malaysia emulated the British system in which the military is not an independent entity.

Unlike modern Turkey that was established by a military coup led by Mustapha Kemal, Malaysian military has a constitutional leadership as symbolic head of the various military branch. The Raja-Raja Melayu are insistent on the continuity for constitutional monarch and rakyat self-rule. A republic will end their existence anyway.

Turkish military has a history of coups because it is inscribed in their establishment to uphold a secular system of government. This give them justification to bring back order in government.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has been on an Islamist path since his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power. And the Kemalian secularist ideology military have been against it. When Erdogan was Prime Minister, he was removed through a military coup.

Malaysia has no such precedent thus it will not happen. This invited the electronic engineer to interject.

He said past Malaysian Prime Ministers which stayed long has always had family members to lead the military to prevent any form of military coup from developing.

The active opposition campaign worker claimed Tunku Abdul Rahman had his nephew, Tunku Osman Tunku Mohamed Jewa as the first Malaysian Armed Forces Chief of Staff. While, Tun Dr Mahathir has brother-in-law, General Tan Sri Mohamed Hashim bin Mohd Ali as Chief of the Defence Forces.

Another observation he highlighted was Tun Abdul Razak never did the same but he was no example to show he cannot sustain without his man or family heading the military. But, Pak Lah and Najib were better examples.

With the Department of Justice filing, inspite of attempts to raise issues on DOJ and the AG, public opinion is getting more and more overwhelming and Najib's back is against the wall in the court of public opinion.

If other avenues are exhausted, then a military coup is ripe for the taking. The engineer with years of experience in telecommunication and electronic research felt there are indications the lower ranks are no more pro-government.

Lumut parliament seat fell to opposition albeit a retired Navy Admiral. A senior lecturer at the National Defense University, Prof Dr Ariffin Omar could join DAP and is now Vice Chairman. It is bewildering as to how a former Aliran activist could join such establishment. Even a controversial character like Dr Ridhuan Tee is a lecturer there.

Do they vet the trainers and curriculum to train future military officers?

There was silence for a while.

The Contractor seek permission to add on to what was raised by the telco man. He said it will be good to have our Colonel friend in the discussion so that he can give the military insight.

He said Malaysia and Turkey has always been mentioned as the two most progressive Islamic country. Would this not attract interference from outside to destabilise an Islamic country and superpowers would want to put their puppet?

Bear in mind, both Malaysia and Turkey have geo-strategic value.

Malaysia is in middle of the trade route of Straits of Malacca and South China Sea. While, Turkey is the gate of Europe and Asia, the gate of Mediterranean and Black Sea, the gate of Mediterranean and Red Sea.

For a basic idea, read this is 1998 paper here on Turkey's strategic value to build on with later political, military, trade and financial development.

The architect disagree. Malaysia and Turkey are different. Having been there on many occasions, he said the Islamic profile of Malaysia and Turkey vastly differ.

Islam has constitutional position in Malaysia and the Muslims are generally still practising. Turkey is only a country of Muslims but only certain part of the country practise Islam. Generally they tend to start preying in their old age.

The idea being bandied about by Malaysian Islamic activist to promote the idea of Erdogan as a new caliphates for Islam is delusional. The sentiment that came out in support Erdogan which event resulted in human casualties against the military coup did not rise out of Islamic sentiment but Turkish nationalism.

The Western media depicted it as fight for democrasy but that it not quite true. The role of the west is more complicated. But, this notion of caliphate as promoted by our Malaysian Islamist which are influenced by Ikhwanul Muslimin and now being championed by ISIS is hogwash.

It is a dreamy romanticism of the past. Brexit is too early an indication to the end of regional grouping of nations and return to the individual modern nation state. Still, it is far cry from the Medeivel and Renaissance era of city state which were the backbone of empires!

Turks are secular and for all practical purposes, they are Europeans. They have not joined EU but is an important member in Nato. They have the largest Armed Forces in Nato.

The retired banker and now regular contributor to a media chip in.

The recent geo-political conflicts in the region has to be understood to understand the recent military coup. Turkey is in a perfect storm of crises, as Global Research puts in with crisis in Syria, and with EU, US, Kurds, Nato and Russia.

There are conflicting interest by siding or being together with any party. To cut it short, there is that possibility that the US could be behind the military coup. The hint is how Fox News attacked Erdogan and also his supporters for reacting to the coup.

It is not so much for the French and EU reaction to call on Erdogan to respect for law and human rights in restoring order.They have always been finding reasons to prevent Turkey from joining Europe. More so with many ISIS attacks on French soil.

The electronic engineer interjected to highlight the accusation of Erdogan of breaching human rights had always been Western media propaganda.

The banker replied true or maybe not. Erdogan will need to fortify himself. That is understandable but the purge on the military could get carried away and it has happened in the past in the Middle East, where suspension of democrasy is in perpetuity and throws the country into dictatorship.

There are reasons to believe the US is behind it.

They have not been happy with Erdogan taking a blind eye on ISIS. Erdogan had allegedly used ISIS to attack on Kurds and Syiah factions in Syria while at the same time cooperated with US to see Bashar Assad defeated. However he did not support the US-backed rebel fighting against Assad.

Since Russian came into Syria in the war against ISIS, they had taken a pro Assad stance. The US got uncomfortable with Erdogan when he became friendly with Russian. The Kemalian military are pro-US. The airbase commander where US launch their attack on ISIS was taken in for participating in the coup.

A recent report from Russia Today accused a former American NATO commander was behind the coup. Macedonian Online claim Erdogan was saved by Russian.

The electronic engineer interjected again. This was a people uprising against the military. Unless there were covert operation behind, can't see how Russians are involved.

The diplomat stepped in. There was a report by BBC that claimed Erdogan had been purging the military of staunch secularist ideologists to fortify himself. He used to be overthrown by the military thus it could be pre-emptive move by him.

The BBC report did mention that there was another round of expected purge in August and the certain faction of the military expecting to be affected may have reacted.

However, it is preposterous the US is involved. It was badly planned and executed. Some reports described it as amateurish. The higher hierarchy in the army was not involved.

The electronic engineer stepped in. How about the case of the Turkish dissident being protected by the Americans? He was capable of pulling a military coup from inside. He has influence with people inside police, army and government.

Banker interjected. The person we are talking about is Fethullah Gulen, the exiled liberal-inclined cleric in asylum in Pennsylvania. Gulen was together with Erdogan. So there could be internal political struggle that led to this coup.

The architect spoke to ask to return to the subject of a possible military coup in Malaysia.

Mathematics professor stepped in. By comparing the situation in Malaysia and Turkey, it can be concluded that it differs vastly. Our military people would not have collaborated with foreigners to pursue their domestic agenda.

Furthermore the Malaysian military have no domestic political agenda. They may have personal opinion on local issues but the chain of command would not interfere in political affair.

Contractor asked: How about the possibility that US tried to interfere in internal affair for our position of the 9-dash line issue with China? Maybe they wanted us to take on China like the Phillipines so they set-up a coup?

The architect replied, "Then, if that is the case, the DOJ was more a political coup or psy-op to assist Mahathir topple Najib. Already there are questions as to how Mahathir could do it other than wait out the general election?"

Math prof pondered to ask is it possible for Mahathir to collaborate in an American covert op. It is an upside down world.

Consequently, there was a consensus that the link and situation does not add up for a military coup. There is a general law that applies on military personnel as well as civilian for waging a war on the Yang Dipertuan Agong. It is treason and found guilty, they should be hanged.

But how come the nine Lahad Datu intruders escaped with life sentence? At least, four of them should be hanged. Some judges are getting wishy washy.

One of us shared something on several new military appointments. It strengthen further the argument a coup won't happen in the near future. By the time there was an argument as to which side should pay, the mamak waiter came to informed that someone paid for all.

A friend was waving from afar with a thumbs up sign.

Monday was Hari Pahlawan or Warrior's Day to commemmurate the sacrifice of our servicemen and women in defending the nation.

We text our colonel friend a greeting with the link to the Sunday posting. Colonel was caught in a mine and lost a leg in a jungle operations near the border around 30 years ago.

Every Hari Pahlawan our gang will be reminded of a friend who died in one of the many Nuri heli crashes. He came from a poor family and was the hope of his single parent mother. It had always been a puzzle as to why he made the sacrifice for the nation when he does not have much to give?

The colonel, who was promoted from captain few years ago, replied in a serious tone:

The armed forces will not overstep it's constitutional boundary in such lunacy and grandiose undertaking.

With certainty, the armed forces pride itself in its professionalism and value the tenets of democratic country form of civil-military relationship. In layman term, that means a firm but respecting civilian control over an apolitical military.

His Majesty is the Supreme Commander of the armed forces. We swore allegiance to His Majesty and we serve at his pleasure. It is therefore preposterous, even insulting to the servicemen and women; to argue that the armed forces as an institution will raise armed against HM and by extension HM government!

He explained that soldiers are trained to take orders and carry out instruction. There is not much room for discretion.

The manual limits the power of the officers at the various level thus decisions need to refer to their superior. Every action comes with the required communication and order up and down the line.

And, how is a group of soldiers to do a coup when the procedure to requisition arms for operations is a tight. This was instituted after the Al Maunah incident. To overthrow a government is a massive exercise, it requires lots of arms, equipment and vehicle. Where will they gets it?

Then he said with a sterner tone, the fact that you are writing this indicates that perhaps the armed forces may not be doing enough to DISPELLED the MYTH military could participate in such a coup.

We explained that we are writing to preempt any Malaysians from thinking along this line. So he said if you are fishing, we bite because it is necessary.

Logical as it maybe, the threat could come from those that have left the force. A friend called to express disagreement and complained our posting had no conclusion. It was intended to be so.

He went further to say the welfare of the generals and top serviceman are taken care upon retirement but there are too many rank and file to be taken off. That could start resentment against the government.

Now, yours truly was brought by a little nutty upstairs former reporter to meet a retired captain and general moe than a decade ago. In both instances, there were conversation on the subject of a coup. They said the same thing. It will not happen but one did utter the word, "I'd take a bullet for him, anytime."

Ohhh ... powerful words.

We were invited for a roti canai on Monday by an elderly gentleman, who had served and sacrificed for the nation.

In the casual chat, there were lots of reminiscing of the pasts. It was nevertheless relevant to understand and get a perspective of the present. Isn't that why we need to know history?

Then he shared many stories that would not have found it's way in the history book, or any autobiography or memoir. Some of it were shocking and dispel most of the common understanding and/or perception on event/(s) and person/(s).

He was giving the message that media and bloggers should take the effort to go down and find out what really was happening, especially in the past.

The action of a person today - good or bad, great or poor - may come about from what happenned during their childhood. His family, parents, social environment, culture, and socio-economy of the times have its influence the person's make-up.

Seek for the information beyond the quick biography of a person on RTM that typically is too good to be true.

A friend chipped in. He attended a wedding over the weekend and it striked on him when the father of the bridegroom said he agreed to the marriage for one and only one reason.

His future daughter-in-law came from a family of "orang baik-baik (good and respected people)." It is all about bloodline.

Any serious endeavour with any person requires a thorough knowledge of the background of the counterpart.

The elder gentleman went on. Historical cycle is about the past repeating itself. The cautionary message he gave was someone's psychologically scared for life could be dangerous.

Then he went on to talk about Erdogan and Turkey.

Malaysians should not be too quick to pride ourselves when being mentioned together with Turkey. We cannot even compare to their size, population, economy, history, technological capability and military.

At the back of our mind, he may have read our latest posting. And, he asked do we know the Turkish President Teyyip Erdogan.

The west has and more so now are working overtime to depict him as a dictator. Make that comparison with other dictator or potential dictator whether he is so.

Somewhere somehow, the elderly gentleman was saying to look the other way instead of looking at a military coup to topple the government. The person saved by the military coup could be holding his own coup. Some analyst already spinning that story in the western media.

If there is any possibility of Erdogan moving to be another dictator, there is every reason to think so. He does not take a neutral position and leave the executive role to the Prime Minister as per past Presidents.

Erdogan now plan to place the military under the control of the Presidency. He already purged the military, judiciary, and government by the tens of thousand. The 11 soldiers alleged attempted assassination on him were arrested.

German court was criticised for barring him from speaking to 40,000 Turkish supporters in Cologne. He accused the West of supporting the undemocratic coup attempt. US was criticised for harbouring Gulen.

This need some history. Erdogan established the AKP after he left the Welfare Party to moved a way from their fundamentalist stance for a more moderate position to be more in tune with Turkey's secular constitution.

When AKP won a landslide victory in 2002, Gulen assume the Prime Ministership. Erdogan was still banned from politics by the judiciary. He assumed the post after court cancelled the election result of a constituency which made way for a by-election for him to win.

Erdogan and Gelen went a long way back. It could be internal rivalry.

Hassan Nafaa, a political science professor at Cairo University wrote in Al Ahram. He felt it is too presumptous on the western media to spin Erdogan to take the dictator route. To conclude his analysis, he left it hanging:

In spite of the fact that the recent military coup marred his personal image and that of the current regime in Turkey, it has given him a new and great opportunity to change and improve that image.

Will Erdogan take advantage of this opportunity? Or will his habitual vindictive instincts and thirst for power prevail? The forthcoming weeks and months hold the answer to these questions.

So it needs a more thorough understanding of Erdogan the man.

In an article [read here] on Pentagon's 208 page study to do a psychological profiling of dictators, it is filled with descriptions such as "neurological abnormalities", "insecure, impotent, masochistic, and suicidal neurotic narcissist" to describe Hitler, "ardent nationalism" for Ho Chin Minh, "unpredictable and two-faced" for Khrushchev, "highly neurotic and unstable" for Castro, etc.

More from James Fallon MD in Psychology Today here.

In fact, the subject of Erdogan's narcissist tendency was discussed in a social engagement portal, Quora here.

If Erdogan actually orchestrate a military coup to pull off his own coup and bring about change and rebalance the geopolitics in the region, it must be a truly brilliant move. However, does it have to come at the expense of hundreds of life?

Erdogan would not have made an act to cry at his close friend's funeral. He look sincere enough when he carried the coffin of a dead supporter.

It comes down to understanding military coup.

Naunihal Singh view occurance of military coup tend to involve "states that were neither strongly authoritarian nor strongly democratic (anocracies), marked by low economic development and a past history of successful coups."

It's success has a lot to do with how confident the ranks are with the planned attempt. Any political support for a cause in less developed democrasy has a lot to do with the probability of success.

Since Napolean Bonaparte in 1799, military coup has occurred in "new states of North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa." Coup claim to be revolutionaries but seldom are. Samuel Huntington described the success of coups depends on the strength of political institutions and participation level.

An understanding of military coup in Asia can be found here.

Tun Dr Mahathir is in the midst of a coup against the government of the day. He admitted he is a dictator but claimed "people did not demonstrate against me before". Off course, it is a political statement to make him not look so bad in front of his former political enemies.

However, it is unlikely he has any known bizarre traits similar to any other dictators or up and coming dictators mentioned. As we used to describe, Mahathir was a benevolent dictator.

Prof Din Merican puts it, "Dr. Mahathir is a superb politician and an intellectual with strong work ethics. Some of us may not like his politics because of his Machiavellian streak. But we must at least acknowledge that it was the Tun who put our country on the world map."

Din went on to post here a letter from one Noramtaz Abdullah to express her amazement with Mahathir's physical development of the country.

When Prime Minister Dato Najib introduced BR1M in 2012, prior to the 2013 general election, it was criticised as buying votes. The lower income earners and retirees appreciated the cash handout to lighten their burden.

The impact on votes for BN is still up for debate till today. Partly because giving away money freely was principally wrong to the eyes of Dr Mahathir. When he turned political against Najib, he associated BR1M with dedak to gain political support. It was turned around against him as demeaning the common folks.

BR1M was one of the four excuses he put together to justify overthrowing Najib. The others being Sirul, GST and 1MDB. There is no intention for reform as claimed in his failed Citizens' Declaration.

However, his thinking is in line with the Republican economic thoughts that abhors subsidy, social assistance and anything interrupting the free market mechanism. Mahathir attitude is more synonymous with the frugality of his generation. Do not give fish but give fishing rod to enable them to fish.

The theoretical justification behind BR1M was not clear thus it was presumed as an election tool. If that is the case, are 35 British economists out to assist Tory win the next general election?

A group of British economists was reported to suggest direct cash handouts as away to boost Britain’s flagging economy as compared to interest-rate cuts.

In a letter published in The Guardian, the 35 economists urged new UK chancellor of exchequer Philip Hammond to let the Bank of England try this radical option. The letter below:

Wednesday 3 August 2016 19.46 BST
Last modified on Thursday 4 August 2016 12.15 BST

A post-Brexit economic policy reset for the UK is essential Wallet with pound notes

‘Ultra-loose monetary policy has come with harmful side-effects,’ write 35 economists in their letter to the Guardian. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

In the wake of June’s Brexit vote, the outlook for the UK economy is more uncertain than at any time since 2008. Mark Carney has promised that the Bank of England will do “whatever it takes” to support growth. But with interest rates at historic lows, and questions being raised over the viability of additional quantitative easing (QE), it is unclear that the Bank of England has the tools to meet the challenges ahead. The new government’s promised economic policy “reset” should involve a new collaborative relationship with the Bank, whereby the Treasury supports the design of alternative monetary policy tools.

The monetary policy committee is expected to cut rates and consider restarting QE at its next meeting on 4 August. But seven years of easier monetary policy has not yielded its desired effects. It is often forgotten that before 2009, interest rates had never fallen below 2%. Since then they have not increased above 0.5%. Further cuts in interest rates will not benefit the UK’s economy. Similarly, a further expansion of the Bank’s £375bn QE programme is the wrong solution for today’s economic problems. QE was arguably required in 2009 to provide the banking sector with liquidity in the face of a frozen interbank lending market. The risks facing our economy have little to do with the availability of liquidity in the financial sector, and all to do with businesses and households cutting spending due to an increasingly uncertain economic outlook.

As well as being of limited effectiveness, ultra-loose monetary policy has come with harmful side-effects. Just before she became prime minister, Theresa May became the latest high-profile politician to recognise that lower interest rates and QE have increased inequality by inflating asset prices. Indeed, the success of both of these policies is dependent on the private sector taking on even more debt. These policies are being considered despite the Bank itself identifying household debt as one of the most significant risks to our economy. Responding to a potential recession by risking financial stability with more private debt hardly seems like a viable policy solution.

As the new chancellor looks to “reset” economic policy, new ways of conducting monetary policy should be considered. Instead of policies designed to fuel asset price bubbles and increase household debt, the Treasury and the Bank should co-operate to directly stimulate aggregate demand in the real economy. A fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money creation could be used to fund essential investment in infrastructure projects – boosting the incomes of businesses and households, and increasing the public sector’s productive assets in the process. Alternatively, the money could be used to fund either a tax cut or direct cash transfers to households, resulting in an immediate increase of household disposable incomes.

In any of these policy scenarios, new money will be directly introduced into the real economy, stimulating aggregate demand and boosting employment, investment and spending. While it is a job for the Treasury to set up the framework for these policies to be deployed, it would remain a decision for the monetary policy committee as to the timing and size of any future stimulus.
Advertisement

After seven years of ineffective unorthodox monetary policy – which has created risks and adverse side-effects – we urge the new government to consider alternative policy approaches that will directly increase spending and investment in the real economy without burdening households with more debt.

Andrew Watt Macroeconomic Policy Institute, Hans-Böckler-Foundation
Avner Offer University of Oxford
Fran Boait Positive Money
Biagio Bossone Chairman of the Group of Lecce
Christian Marazzi University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
Constantin Gurdgiev Trinity College Dublin
David Boyle Radix
David Graeber London School of Economics
Ellen Brown Public Banking Institute
Eric Lonergan Economist and writer
Fulvio Corsi City University of London
Guy Standing School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Helge Peukert University of Erfurt
Herman Daly University of Maryland
Iqbal Asaria Cass Business School
Jem Bendell University of Cumbria
John Weeks School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Joseph Huber Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
Josh Ryan-Collins New Economcs Foundation
Kaoru Yumaguchi Doshisha Business School
Kees van der Pijl University of Sussex
Ladislau Dowbor Pontifical Catholic Universit
Laurence Seidman University of Delaware
Luca Ciarrocca Macroeconomic author
Livio Di Matteo Lakehead University
Mark Blyth Brown University
Mary Mellor University of Northumbria
Matthias Kroll World Futures Council
Nigel Dodd London School of Economics
Ole Bjerg Copenhagen Business School
Philip Haynes University of Brighton
Lord Robert Skidelsky Warwick University
Steve Keen Kingston University
Thomas Fazi Social Europe
Tim Jackson University of Surrey
Victoria Chick University College London

The Financial Times reported the British economy was chugging along fine till Brexit came along and put “a spanner in the works”. In a recent development, The Guardian reported signs of retrenchment in several industries.

"An expansion of 0.6% in the British economy between April and June was countered by signals from the construction industry, car factories and high street stores that provide the Bank of England with justification for moving to boost growth when its interest rate-setting committee meets next week."

The fear of the side effect of conventional rate cutting measures brought about the letter by the 35 economists. They believed the new Exchequer should look at new ways of conducting monetary policy and consider something similar to BR1M.

This development in Britain throws aside arguments, including by yours truly, that BR1M has no economic justification but merely to bridge the economic transformation till higher income reach the masses.

Dublin-trained economist, Tengku Razaleigh had offered the similar economic remedy in Semangat 46 election manifesto decades ago.

The seldom clueless Kelab Che Det will need to look for new argument to support their idol. Will Mahathir recycle his old argument against the British dole system in the wake of him buddy buddying with the West for political support?

The street meaning to "cognitive miser" is lazy to think. However, to say so directly would only anger people.

When public perception of certain issues is wrong, it is not because they are not intelligent. According to an article on BBC Future, "Why are people so incredibly gullible?", even Nobel Prize winners have fallen for some bizarre and baseless theories.

A researcher on misinformation at the University of Southern California, Eryn Newman said, “Even when we ‘know’ we should be drawing on facts and evidence, we just draw on feelings.” To save time and energy, our brains tend use intuition rather than analysis.

People can be misled by the source of information, evidence, thinking of others, compatibility with their own belief, and want for a good story.

Getting even with Mahathir?

If the report by Malaysiakini is taken as source, there are members of the public that could fall for the accusation local authority turned a blind eye on Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan following a warrant of arrest by India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for money laundering.

Amanah Youth chief Shazni Munir Mohd Ithnin was merely attempting to link the story to Jho Loh and 1MDB. It is of no relevance to him that the link to 1MDB is technically wrong. There is neither any court order for police to arrest nor political association of Ananda with current leadership.

Those understanding the political link speculated that Ananda is being investigated for his association with Tun Dr Mahathir. It is "a good story" and has "compatibility with their own belief".

Same with the latest case of Securities Commission.

SC had just charged "Dato’ Yeow Kheng Chew, former Executive Director of Kencana Petroleum Berhad, Paulene Chee Yuet Fang, her remisier Tan Yee Chee for insider trading in relation to the proposed merger of Kencana Petroleum Berhad and SapuraCrest Petroleum Berhad in 2011".

Without pondering that insider trading case takes long to gather evidence, there will be questions raised as to must they be charged now?

Has it got to do with existing political feud between Prime Minister Dato Najib and former Prime Minister Mahathir? KC Yeow was a business partner to former Kencana Chairman, Tan Sri Mokhzani Tun Dr Mahathir.

The "good story" would be SC had looked the other way on 1MDB bond issues and an existing securities offense for stock manipulation involved someone linked to Mahathir. What will they say when someone got charged by SC for Yinson as exposed by the other side?

Keling curi Melayu kasi Cina

When this blog raised the issue of MAS and targeted Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop for doing hatchet job on a Malay entrepreneur, Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli, we were accused as being politically motivated to defend Tun Dr Mahathir, attack Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and others?

Tajuddin sold MAS and proceed was kept inside a public listed company, Naluri Berhad. He was planning to withdraw the money in the form of special dividend to shareholders to enable him to settle debts related to his shareholding in Celcom. Nor Yakcob blocked the approval and Tajuddin was forced to default.

This blog defended him because Tajuddin was asked to step in to buy MAS in order to save Bank Negara Malaysia. It was not his corporate plan to go into aviation when he had plans to pursue shipping with the purchase of PNSL and sold his interest in D&C Bank, Short Roxy, Tongkah, etc.

The story is right and it is in line with the public thinking and perception of Tajuddin as Mahathir's crony. What will they say after viewing last Saturday's The Edge issue below:

Naluri was taken over by Atlan. Now the real and final owner of Atlan is known.

The perception should now change to a case of Keling curi syarikat Melayu untuk kasi pada Cina.

No more Lembu

Now come the issue of Tan Sri Shahrizat Jalil and her husband's lembu business that received much slack. When she spoke out to defend Najib in her capacity as an UMNO Wing Chief, social media made fun of her.

The perception on her and the condo for lembu is so embedded that public was not thinking along evidentiary line or taking account on latest development on her husband's business. On November 25th, National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) executive chairman Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail was acquitted for two criminal breach of trust (CBT) charges involving RM49.7mil.

Salleh was accused of allegedly channelling RM9,758,140 through four NFCorp cheques to partly pay for the purchase of two condominiums at the One Menerung complex in Kuala Lumpur and transferring RM40mil via a cheque to National Meat & Livestock Corporation Sdn Bhd.

He also faced two alternative charges of using the funds prior to getting approval at the company’s annual general meeting. [Read in The Star here].

Rafizi Ramli is buying time for BAFIA offense and defamation. Truth has catch up on him. Last May, he admitted making assumption on allegations involving 8 properties.

NFC is now suing Public Bank for the leak that cost the company opportunity loss. The sum Public Bank is being sued for is in the tune of RM500 million but no paper dare to publish the news. Only The Sun reported NFCorp received all documents pertaining to the Bank's domestic inquiry against a former employee over leak of confidential account information.

So careful who you call Lembu.

Going-ons in Ganu

Terengganu MB, Ahmad was reported by MMO to claim there is no problem. The leadership dispute will end on Monday tomorrow.

Former MB, Mohamed Said replied he has no intention for snap election but insist Razif should go. He is called the bluff on Razif's bold claim they are ready for snap election. He warned UMNO could lose should there be a snap election.

It is easy to assume Md Said is rooting for Mahathir and this is a ploy to takeover the state. It is "thinking of others, compatibility with their own belief, and want for a good story".

If so, it is not difficult. He could work together with PAS and he with few supporters could call for a vote of no confidence tomorrow. Be it tomorrow or before, he did not do a proper usul. He could seek audience with the Sultan with the members of his coalition.

If he wanted to, he could have done it long ago. What is he doing then?

Joceline Tan had a good account of the political saga here. One comment of her caught our attention:

Political circles in Terengganu are abuzz with talk of the gelombang kuning or yellow wave. It is the euphemism for several Umno division heads and elected representatives aligned to Ahmad Said and their aim is to oust Ahmad Razif.

The man-in-the-street explanation is Razif infuriated the Sultan for mortgaging away Terengganu's oil. Mat Said is merely doing Tuanku's bidding. It involved Bertam oil finding in 2012 in which it was announced as Pahang's oil.

Razif has explained that the oil does not belong to Terengganu. But he did say in The Star, "The Federal Government has said before that it will help the nearest state to the oil well. So, that’s what we are negotiating for, a 5% royalty from the Bertam oil well, located about three nautical miles off Terengganu waters."

Oh ... now that could be the issue.

Mat Said is such a gedebe that it is difficult for an aristocrat like Najib to communicate with. He is likely to rely on the Terengganu people in Kuala Lumpur he trust. There could be communication problem.

Najib should meet Mat Said to hear his side of the story. Razif could be telling something different. Trust Najib also to have thought of the political possibilities and ready with a possibility of BN losing the snap election.

Shafie scheme

Last Sunday, Malaysiakini reported 1,500 UMNO members from Tenom division resigned from the party.

Shafie is in the midst of building a good story for public to believe in. It was promoted earlier that 317 UMNO division and branch leaders of Semporna left UMNO. There was a big hype. We wrote that he paid for their presence. There are those that do now want to believe that story.

It is OK to disbelieve because people believe what they want to believe. We would believe local sources and people we had working relations with. Not only it is his Suluk kin folks, it is not UMNO. Same source from Semporna elaborated that Shafie paid PKR members to fill up the hall. Didn't we hinted that here.

As far as the Tenom story, only 2 or 3 resigned from UMNO. The crowd came for makan-makan and cabutan nombor bertuah. For what Shafie did to Tenom folks, he could not have such support.

Shafie is struggling. He can't join Mahathir's new party. The proceeding from Projek IC commission come out in full and Shafie is gone. He wanted to join USNO but Abdullah Sani Abdul Salleh leading the revival is his mortal enemy. Thus he has to form his own party.

Shafie got the money but he does not have supporters and network to put up a new party. He has to buy instant membership by tagging on to a certain personality. His agenda is expected to be Sabah for Sabahan.

A bit too late for him to join a loaded bandwagon. He has no affinity with KDM to be able to have any impact.

He tries to create a good story, gauge the thinking of others and making it compatible but source of information and evidence does not jive. UMNO Secretary, Dato Yahya Hussein exposed his claim that he was the earliest UMNO fighter. He was still working in civil service then.

Foiled game

Didn't we say Azwanbro is an idiot?

Will not blame Raja Petra for his story. The conspiracy by the four Tan Sri has been his forte from the beginning.

For Azwanbro to do a police report, that is something else. Making a false report is an offence and he can be charged for it. Dr Puad Zarkashi was reported by Malaysiakini warning Azwan. Gerakan Youth leader called for a probe.

IGP commented that there is no case. It is believed Azwan used Dato Kadir Jasin's blog post as proof to the police to clear himself. Thus Kadir's reply that he is no moron.

The suspicion is Azwan was trying to play a game and get the three Tan Sri to sue. That way more will be exposed on Najib. Dangerous game Azwan is playing. People know those supporting his effort were those involved in Nothing2Hide event.

He is known to be associated with Perak MB Dato Seri Dr Zambery Kadir. Anyone could just throw a spanner in the work and Zambery could be in trouble.

All it takes is play up Zambery's past association with Muhyiddin. More so, a portal linked to Zambery is known to harbour anti Najib elements. For nothing, Zambery, who has done a good job at Kuala Kangsar and to some extent in Perak, end up in hot soup. He has been working hard for Perak despite the constraints faced.

It is not difficult to do so with a gullible public. More so, when there are segments of the public believe lies and deception are acceptable in politics.

The two parts posting on the Turkish military coup and whether is will happen in Malaysia here and here came to the conclusion that it will not happen.

However, the discussion on preserving the institution of people self-rule and an apolitical military led to the subject of leadership and character of personalities holding the mantle of leadership.

It eventually led to an analysis of Erdogan's leadership.

Since there are those that fanatically believed in the rise of a new caliphate from the ruins of the Ottoman empire will come in the form of Erdogan, it would be interesting to explore the subject of leadership and loyalty in Islam.

Sura An-Nisa (59) in the holy Quran calls upon believers to be loyal to Allah and loyal to Prophet and leaders selected from among you.

Loyalty and disavowal in Islam (al-wala wal bara) forms essential concepts of the Islamic aqeedah which every Muslim must understand and hold close to their hearts.

One interpretation argued that the concept of loyalty and disavowal "should be applied within the totality of Islamic teaching."

Loyalty should be understood as "to the community of believers and the teachings upon which it is based" and "disavow the actions of those who oppose Islam and persecute the Muslim community". [Read Abu Emina Elias here].

In another interpretation, they stressed the aspect of undivided loyalty and tolerance to human frailty of leaders to place importance on unity over disunity and preservation of institution.

A saying of the prophet as recorded by HR Muslim define the responsibility of leaders to exhibit their leadership and followers obligation to be loyal.

Up to a certain limit, believers are told to vent their dissatisfaction and unhappiness towards the leadership through prayers. It is basically asking for leaders to be given leeway to improve and mend their ways. [Read this facebook Malay posting here.]

The far end of this interpretation goes to the extend of tolerating absolute monarchy and non-democratic system of government including dictatorship as long as the leaders are responsible.

The Arab has a term to describe allegiance as in ‘bai'at’ which means to sell. In the practise of sufi spirituality, bai'ah is symbolically to sell our souls to God through the hands of the man commissioned by him. The wali (saint) or sufi sheikh (teacher) worthy to trust one soul are those able to guide them to salvation.

Modern and progressive Muslims may find it hard to accept such blind loyalty and faith in the hands of a person on even a simple matter of governance, let alone the soul. Nevertheless, it begs the question of the characteristic of leader worthy of such loyalty and allegiance.

The expectations on leaders will be a long list and varies with individuals and categories of individuals. At the basic core, the mark of a leader worthy of such loyalty and allegiance lies in his ability to make crucial decisions for the betterment of his followers.

And this takes us back to the discussion of personality of the leaders concern.

The best way to judge leaders will be through his or her actions and intentions. A glimpse of their intentions could be seen from their past actions to be truthful and consistent (siddeq), honest in their pursuit (amanah), enlightening and inspirational (tabligh) and wise (fatanah).

In return, the loyalty and allegiance of dedicated followers, who will face up to anything for the sake of their leader and his word, makes for great leader.

Most reports claimed a million gathered in Istanbul on Sunday in support of Turkish President Erdogan Teyyip. Some reports claimed two, three million. The Times of UK reported "up to five million people thronged the Yenikapi parade ground for the Democracy and Martyrs’ Rally".

The rally aims to represent Turkish unity in support of the pro-democrasy demonstrators that thwarted an attempted coup on July 15. It also served to commemorate the 317 deaths and thousands injured as a result of the coup.

There were no party banners but only Turkish flags. Two out of three Turkish opposition parties attended the rally. It was reported by the western media that the Kurdish party was not invited.

The west have been on a campaign to paint of negative picture of Erdogan by depicting as dictator and criticising his crackdown on the military, judiciary, civil service and academics. [Read in The Week here]

With this display of support by those that really matter, i.e. the people of Turkey, their critics are of no relevance.

The fact is "westerners left Turks isolated"

Erdogan was quoted by the French daily Le Monde on Monday to have said, "The Western world was in contradiction with the values it defends. They should have shown their solidarity with Turkey, which has appropriated their democratic values. Unfortunately, they preferred to leave Turks isolated,"

World leaders did not react in the same way they did after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Jan. 2015.Is it their prejudice towards Islam?

Turkey is left to address the source of the domestic threat to democrasy and find new alliances to fend for themselves and continue their peaceful existence in the explosive region. Turkey and Russia is "expected to set a new road map for bilateral relations between Ankara and Moscow".

Erdogan demonstrated leadership in the midst of adversity and deserves all the respect, support and sacrifice of the people.

According to the concept of Islamic democrasy, Erdogan demonstrated his resolve to uphold the principles of leaders to be elected by the people, taking charge of the nation's destiny, and done within the spirit of syura consultation through parliament.

The third principle could be the subject of debate as leaders are subject to syaria. Some countries do not conform to the features of Islamic democrasy but are Islamic countries. Syaria interpretation and application as state law varies from country to country.

Taking the current situation and condition in Turkey, Erdogan should be tolerated as his effort to revive Islamic practises and traditions in public life and dismantling the tyranny of Mustapha Kamel's secularism is gaining acceptance.

Peace and democrasy may bode well for Islam in secular Turkey.

Be it as dictator or democratic leader, to judge Erdogan as a great leader in comparison to others will depend on his ability to make crucial decision for the betterment of the people and nation, and his actions and intention to be consistently truthful, honest, inspirational and wise.

For Erdogan, time will tell and he has the opportunity to prove himself. For past leaders, they will be judge for their past actions and consistency to the present in upholding principles and values.

British documentary, Why Donald Trump is winning?, explores the Trump phenomenon

Donald Trump was neck to neck on the polls into the Republican National Convention.

After RNC repeatedly raised issue on Hillary's email scandal and labeling her as "Crooked Hillary", there was sufficient damage to Hillary's trust deficit.

Even our apolitical younger brother predicted Trump could pull it off to win. We only cautioned that November is still far away. It may come down to the last two weeks.

Unfortunately, after the DNC, he is now trailing Hillary in the polls by double digit margin. Among women voters, Hillary widen her lead from 7, 8 points to 23 points. One political analyst see the election is already over.

Trump's thin-skinned and bad replies on Twitter or in person worsen his situation. His polls sink every time he speaks.

In his latest "short-circuit" ad against Hillary, Trump looks desperate to regain ground. At one stage, instead of talking about Hillary's problem, he foolishly relitigated every controversies from the primaries.

It is ungentlemanly to continue knocking on someone already dying. Why not a balancing view to lend a hand to The Donald?

Not sure if that video helps.

You see it makes no difference who wins the US election. Both sides openly support Israel and turn a blind eye to the injustice and atrocities towards the Palestinian.

No doubt, the Palestinian problem is partly the problem of Arab and Muslim disunity and perpetually at each others throat.

But the US talks a lot and pride themselves as champion of human right.

US have done much damage to the world. Having someone like Trump as President could be the divine justice for victims of American cruelty in the world.

The agent of divine justice is being brushed by the Democrats as racist and hawkish. His straight talking is propagandised as war monger, reckless foreign policy doctrine and a dangerous politics of fear at work.

Though there maybe some basis, we should be aware that there are lots of propaganda and misinformation used in political campaign.

The unfavourable truth could be hidden. If the opponent raised it as issue, it could be turned to spin back against the opponents.

The sensational attempt by Trump to raise issue on Hillary's email controversy was spinned by Democcrat spinmeister as Trump having hidden interest with Putin and Russian.

Americans are great salesman and marketeer. They can tell you anything and appeal to our emotion to buy-in into their propaganda and support them.

Bet many have fallen for Hillary because she is a woman.

Global Research TV, an NGO dedicated to anti-war agenda, which is closely associated with Tun Dr Mahathir's Perdana Global Peace Organisation, presented Hillary as a different woman.

To balance the view, Freidman TV posted an hour long video to expose the "massive clouds of dust of speculation, misinformaton, half truth, non-truth, false truth and the occasional nuggets of accuracy" on Trump by American mainstream media:

Good effort by supporter Stefan Molyneux to shed light on the strategic thinking of Trump and clearing public misunderstanding for a fair assessment of the man.

After so the many recent bad press for his comments on Khirz Khan's dead soldier son, Warren Buffet challenging him to reveal his tax return, Trump revealed his economic plan.

Just when Trump is trying to focus his campaign on plans, practically all US mainstream and alternative media slamming him for trying to revive Reagan's trickle down economics. So we are left to reproduce UK's Financial Times report to give a view from the other side of the coin:

Last updated: August 8, 2016 9:10 pm

Trump pledges ‘tax revolution’ for US business

Mr Trump says he wants to issue a moratorium on new agency regulations
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump plans to "jump start" the US economy by suspending new regulations and cutting corporate taxes.

Shawn Donnan, Barney Jopson and Sam Fleming in Washington

Donald Trump promised the biggest “tax revolution” since Ronald Reagan on Monday, pledging to cut taxes across the board and sharply reduce the load on businesses to stem a tide of US companies moving headquarters overseas.

In the most detailed account of his economic plans should he become president, the Republican nominee promised no American business would pay more than 15 per cent of their profits in tax, down from the current maximum of 35 per cent. He also pledged to levy a one-off 10 per cent tax on trillions of dollars in US corporate profits now parked overseas in a bid to lure them home.

The cut, he made clear, was aimed at overseas tax competition from countries like Ireland and the UK. The 15 per cent proposal echoed one made by George Osborne, the UK’s former chancellor of the exchequer following Britain’s vote in June to leave the EU.

“We are ready to show the world that America is back — bigger and better and stronger than ever before,” Mr Trump told the Economic Club of Detroit in a speech repeatedly interrupted by protesters.

His speech, which included several pro-business policy initiatives long embraced by market-oriented Republicans, came after a tumultuous week which saw a number of mainstream party members seek to distance themselves from the nominee.

Party leaders have fretted that Mr Trump’s recent mis-steps, including toying with not endorsing Republican luminaries in re-election bids, have put internecine warfare at the forefront of the campaign and distracted attention from the weaknesses of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Mr Trump attempted to refocus his firepower on Mrs Clinton by insisting her economic policies would lead to higher taxes and stifling regulations.

“If you were a foreign power looking to weaken America you couldn’t do better than Hillary Clinton’s economic agenda,” he said.

“Every policy she has tilts the playing field to other countries at our expense.”

Mrs Clinton, who is due to deliver her own economic address in Michigan on Thursday, has offered an economic plan that would largely continue current policies, though like Mr Trump she has taken a harder line on trade.

She responded to the speech by accusing Mr Trump of wanting to give “super big tax breaks to corporations and the super wealthy” and roll back regulations on Wall Street.

“He wants to basically just repackage trickle-down economics,” she said, making her own nod to Reagan era economic policies.

“Trickle down economics does not help our economy grow. It does not help the vast majority of Americans. But it does really well for people at the top.”

Mr Trump’s move to lower business taxes would end the “job-killing corporate inversions and cause trillions in new dollars and wealth to come pouring into our country,” the New York businessman insisted.

His tax proposals also sought to curry favour with middle class voters. They included a simplification of the US income tax system, reducing the number of income brackets from seven to three and making childcare expenses tax deductible. He also sought to portray a plan to abolish an inheritance tax that now affects only wealthy Americans as benefiting middle class workers.

“American workers have paid taxes their whole lives, and they should not be taxed again at death — it’s just plain wrong,” he said.

But the bulk of his speech was aimed at US business. Sounding an orthodox Republican line, he pledged to “cut regulations massively” and unleash an energy industry — particularly coal — held back by government bureaucracies.

While he repeated his pledge to rip up trade agreements he appeared to moderate his protectionist message somewhat, declaring that “isolation is not an option”.

Mr Trump’s tax proposals drew a cautious welcome from a business community that has often been at odds with him, particularly on trade.

“It clearly is a sweeping proposal that would restore our international competitiveness,” said John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan who now heads the Business Roundtable, which represents US CEOs. “It is a growth proposal and we have been short on those in recent years.”

Reducing US corporate taxes, Mr Engler said, would in “one fell swoop” lead to the repatriation of profits now held overseas and end a pattern of so-called inversions. US companies have stirred huge controversy in recent years by using merger deals known as “inversions” to move their tax addresses to lower-tax jurisdictions including Ireland.

Kyle Pomerleau of the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think-tank, said Mr Trump’s plan mimicked the approach that helped turn Ireland into a haven for multinationals hungry for tax savings.

“The experience of the Irish is that it encourages a lot of companies to locate their activities there, but it also encourages companies to shift profits there. If the US followed this model, companies would be encouraged to shift profits into the US instead of out of it, and it would encourage more real investment in the US too.”

Inversions have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. While establishment Republicans have blamed the American tax code for driving companies away, Mr Trump has joined Democrats by condemning company leaders for choosing to abandon the US.

With Congress deadlocked, the Obama administration has sought to use its executive powers to deter the deals. In April it succeeded in scuppering Pfizer’s planned $160bn takeover of Allergan, but last week the US Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit to block the administration’s moves.

But Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, warned that Mr Trump’s tax-cutting plans could backfire economically by radically driving up government debt. “It is not going to work to promote economic growth,” he warned.

Dorothy Coleman, Vice President of Tax and Domestic Economic Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, said Mr Trump’s proposal for a 15 per cent corporate tax rate fell within what the NAM was seeking, but called for more detail on how Mr Trump would tackle the fact that American companies are taxed on their global income.

“As with so many things in the tax world the devil is in the details,” she said. “We are pleased with a couple of those items that were in Mr Trump’s speech, but we really have to see the whole plan”.

Yes, it is time for the campaign to focus on substance, particularly on policy matter than politics for a better assessment of the candidates. Trump campaigners regularly complained of the sensationalist nonsense by mainstream media in hiding the real issues raised by Trump campaigns.

Though hard to google for one, there is a debate on Trump's economic plan. Still, there is a problem with factual accuracy as Washington Post here rips apart his speech. Hillary can confidently mock his team of economic advisers as 'six guys named Steve.'

Since announcing the economic plan, Trump plunged himself into another crisis as he hinted of "assassination threat" on Hillary in his use of the Second Amendment to attack proposed policy on gun control.

Business as usual for Trump.

It is not true that NST, Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia blacked out news on the passport issuance fiasco at Immigration. So for the moment, it rules out any blame on anyone linked to these few mainstream media.

In the meantime, the public are already laying blame to the current and previous Home Minister. However, before pursuing a favourite Malaysian pastime to assume and presume blame or "gullible" behaviour to ignore facts and pass judgement, read an account of this fiasco at Rocky Bru here.

So let's start by seeking information on the Malaysian passport. One can read in Wikipedia here so only relevant information is highlighted.

Processing of Malaysian passport applications and renewals is very rapid, with new passports usually issued one hour after payment for normal cases.^[1]

The introduction of passport renewal kiosks (KiPPas) at Immigration Department branches across the country allow passport applicants to apply and pay for their passports without queuing at the passport application counters.^[2]

So why does it takes days of queuing from the wee hours of the morning just to get into the wait list for the day?

Iris fault?

More so with a biometric passport system in place. Wikipedia wrote:

Malaysia was the first country in the world to issue biometric passports in March 1998, after a local company, IRIS Corporation, developed the technology.[3] In December 2002, thumbprint data was added to the biometric data on the passport chip. Similar technology is used in the Malaysian identity card, MyKad.

There is more on the technological development in Wikipedia. But the question is: should Iris be blamed?

On March 2014, Bloomberg made a rather damaging report on Iris:

Biometric Passports Born in Malaysia No Cure for Human Error

Olga Kharif, Jordan Robertson and Andrea Tan

March 12, 2014 — 1:10 AM HKT

Malaysia pioneered using biometric passports to curtail immigration fraud. Sixteen years later, the ability of two identity thieves to board a Malaysian Airline plane that went missing exposed the technology as far from foolproof.

The electronic travel documents are embedded with a chip storing the holder’s personal information: a facial photograph, height, weight and sometimes fingerprints and scans of their iris. The information on the e-passports, first developed by Kuala Lumpur-based Iris Corp., can be verified with a government database during checks at immigration control points.

Lax checking procedures and sophisticated counterfeiting techniques mean that biometrics passports aren’t fail safe, six security experts said in interviews. Two passengers who used stolen European passports to get past immigration officers and board Malaysian Airline System Bhd.’s Flight 370 ....

Read on here.

It could be the case of orang putih being jealous of Malaysians ability to develop a technology before they do but there were cases in the past of lapses in security at the Malaysian airport that saw foreigners able to sneek into the country.

Whether it was at the time Iris technology was used or not, it does not matter but it highlights human error or negligence remains relevant.

Datasonic contract

Iris was given the contract to supply after developing the technology. However, in early 2015, Iris contract was up for renewal and there was a tussle for it. Focus Malaysia reported:

Battle for lucrative government contracts

By Doreen Leong

Friday, 13 Mar 2015, 12:30 AM

Datasonic Group Bhd and Iris Corporation Bhd are battling it out for a new lucrative government contract estimated to be worth hundreds of millions to supply Malaysian electronic passports. Currently, Iris holds this e-passport contract and it is learnt that Datasonic might just succeed in wresting it from Iris as the contract is believed to expire in June.

According to sources, while the e-passport contract will only expire in June, Iris has already fulfilled the supply and implementation of secure chip technology solutions under the contract period.

Read on here.

It would not be a surprise that the lobby for the contract would have raised the issue in the Bloomberg report and lay various other complains on Iris's system. By December, The Star reported the following:

Tuesday, 15 December 2015 | MYT 3:46 PM

Datasonic wins RM319mil contract to supply M'sian passport chips

KUALA LUMPUR: Datasonic Group Bhd has clinched a RM318.75mil contract from the Government for the supply of Malaysian passport chips.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, Datasonic said its wholly owned subsidiary, Datasonic Technologies Sdn Bhd (DTSB), had accepted the letter of award (LOA) from the Home Affairs Ministry for the supply of passport chips.

The contract is for a period of five years from Dec 1, 2016 to Nov 30, 2021 for the provision of 12.5 million passport chips.

Read on here.

That takes off Iris off the blame for the current fiasco. The supplier for the Malaysian passport chip today is Datasonic. They are supposed to be able to supply 12.5 million chips but why only 500 a day?

Iris can claim that when they were the one supplying the chips, there was no problem and within an hour passport are issued.

Not only that, The Star reported some months ago:

Wednesday, 27 April 2016 | MYT 7:10 PM

Datasonic secures RM223mil deal to supply Malaysian passports

KUALA LUMPUR: Datasonic Group Bhd, which has already bagged a RM318.75mil contract to supply Malaysian passport chips, on Wednesday secured a RM223.38mil deal from the Home Affairs Ministry to supply Malaysian passport documents over the same five-year period starting Dec 1, 2016, or 13.416 million units.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, the secure ID and chip-based card provider said its wholly owned subsidiary, Datasonic Technologies Sdn Bhd (DTSB), had accepted the letter of award (LOA), under which it is required to furnish a performance bond for RM2.23mil valid throughout the five years.

Read on here.

Blame ...

So the question is why Datasonic could not fulfill their obligation?

If they are not capable to do so, then the blame should go to Ministry of Finance. They are the one to decide and award contracts.

Naturally, the politically motivated segment of the public would just conveniently blame it on the politicians; Minister of Finance cum Prime Minister, Dato Najib or then Minister of Fiance 2, Dato Ahmad Husni Hanazlah.

However, it is not so simple. Ministers merely chair the Tender Board meeting to decide but the decision is a collective one.

The technical evaluation is done by another committee made up of civil servants. It includes evaluating the recommendations from the Ministry concerned for the tender. The assessment papers and recommendations to the Tender Board are prepared by the civil servants.

Thought the process was discussed long time ago in these two postings in 2013 here. Malaysian may have missed those postings or they never realised there exist a Malaysian blog named ABITW.

By the way, as update, the system was supposed to be delivered by December 2015 but it did not happen. After given extension, it still could not be delivered and surprisingly given another 14 months extension. Hello MOF! Calling calling MACC ...

As far as the Datasonic problem, concerned parties including MACC should come in. Was any politicians or government servants involved in a hanky panky that "encouraged" them to missed out on some legal or technical issue that result in the current fiasco?

After all, it was Iris that developed the technology.

This blog will not speculate because the last time questions were asked here based on publicly available information relating to a proposed fuelcard contract involving Datasonic, TV3 carried news of Datasonic plans to sue The Malaysian Insider and this blog.

Lucky thing, there was no contract awarded to anyone so there was no basis to claim TMI and ABITW caused denial of contracts to them. Otherwise, writers of this blog will be exposed.

Nevertheless, this passport fiasco has already reached crisis proportion. There must be a sense of urgency in addressing this problem. It is impossible to claim there is no solution. More so, it could cause further erosion of votes to BN among the urban middle class.

Najib should step in. If Iris or/and Datasonic or/and any other parties was/were responsible for this fiasco, they or their agents or proxies should be blacklisted from further government contracts. They have been a public nuisance!

Hillary Clinton unleashed her economic plan in a speech in Warren, Michigan.

In the speech, she yet again exhibit her inherent ability to rip apart any claims that Donald Trump's business acumen could translate into economic policies management.

What is interesting about the speech is the readjustment in her position on TPPA. Obama administration championed TPPA as to open the door for American multinationals entry into foreign market and level the playing field in a most comprehensive manner.

It is in line with her change in attitude towards big business to tune in with Bernie Sander's agenda. She advocate for higher taxes for the higher income bracket of "billionaires and Wall Street" as representative of the top 1% owning 90% of wealth in the country.

Her change in position on TPPA may have been to neutralise a stance of Trump that is gaining public acceptance. Trump economic speech as below:

Bernie Sanders too opposed TPPA.

Brexit

For Trump, who went on an anti-immigration and "Americanisation" over globalisation campaign, showed a similar stance to the Brexit movement in the UK.

Brexit is the combination of the words Britain and exit that advocate the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). It has been the goal of various individuals, advocacy groups, and political parties since the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the EU, in 1973.

In a 1975 referendum, 67% of voters approved continued membership of the EEC. However in the recent June 2016 referendum, 52% voted to leave EU. This has resulted in a Brexit after shock of complex process of withdrawal and immediate impact on the economy of the UK and other countries.

The main issue that swayed the working class to vote for Leave EU was immigration. Incidently, planned or coincidence, it is also the very issue and a controversial one fought by Trump.

Immigration issue appeals to the Republican hardcore and working class voters. That enable Trump to gain support to win the Republican primaries and appeal him to the conservative segment of voters.

There are those that believe Britain will have a better deal on trade negotiations when done independently than under EU trade block.

TPPA flip flop

Clinton seemed to have taken the same route as Brexit, Trump, and Sanders with her new stance on TPPA. The Washington Times report:

Clinton says she’ll kill trade deal she helped Obama negotiate

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Thursday, August 11, 2016

Hillary Clinton said Thursday she will kill the Trans Pacific Partnership, delivering a flat rejection of the deal she once praised, and helped President Obama negotiate.

“I oppose it now, I’ll oppose it after the election, and I’ll oppose it as president,” she said, detailing her economic plans in a speech in Michigan.

The issue has dogged her for months, including most recently at the Democratic convention last month, where a close friend of hers, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, told Politico she would find a way to get the trade deal approved once she’s in the White House. Mr. McAuliffe backed off and the Clinton campaign rejected his claims, but GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said the comments exposed where Mrs. Clinton really stands.

She and her husband have generally been pro-trade, with former President Clinton having overseen the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, and with Mrs. Clinton in the Senate backing all but two of the trade deals she voted on in Congress.

Mrs. Clinton on Thursday said she would do more than previous administrations to enforce protections that are included in existing trade deals.

She said Mr. Trump, who has vowed to cancel bad trade deals, is unable to get anything done.

“The answer is not to rant and rave or to cut ourselves off from the world. The answer is to finally make trade work for us, not against us,” she said.

WSJ and Bloomberg reported the same too here and here, respectively. The Bloomberg link has video on the specific part of the speech on TPPA.

Did she do a typical Hillary flip-flop? Yes she did, according to Politifact here.

Trump should be pursuing this issue and let the media do their Woodward and Bernstein e-mail investigation. Latest being here and from last night CNN, here.

For Hillary, she can always say it is a necessary change to be consistent with her other campaign policy promises. The often heard rhetoric of it is what the people want will be heard too.

Whether it is only politics or serious stance of Hillary, Obama too promised the same on NAFTA during his presidential campaign but renegade on it.

Vindication

What is important, it is vindication for Malaysia's Dato Mustapha Mohamed.

He and his team at the Ministry negotiated to water down and include exemptions for Malaysia in the TPPA to be consistent with Malaysian constitutional provisions on Bumiputera and state powers.

Now that both sides of the American political divide realised that TPPA only favours big business and/or does not help their domestic economy, what will be the TPPA after shock be like should the US pull out?

Will this be the end of regionalisation and the return to nation-state? In this posting on Turkey military coup here, this blog wrote:

The rise of caliphate and Ottoman empire is a dreamy romanticism of the past. Brexit is too early an indication to claim the end of regional grouping of nations and the return to the individual modern nation state. Still, it is far cry from the Medievel and Renaissance era of city state which were the backbone of empires!

It could be true because regional cooperation for security remains at large. However, it is indication of a new geoglobal alignment in the making. Wait for more to come ....

Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Mens Chronograph automatic watch retails at USD155,250 here

This Government Official is not a politician.

Neither is he a political appointee nor a retired politician given position for retirement.

Without giving away his identity, except that it is a he, the Government Official should only be described as professional. He could be a professional civil serviceman or professional assuming top position in government linked company.

It is important to emphasise that characteristic because the public seldom say (yours truly included) to do away with politicians and put professionals at important positions in government or government linked company.

Supposedly they would do their job effectively, with integrity and conform to best practises. Hopefully they do their job with the social conscience and consideration for the rakyat at large, especially the lesser endowed among them.

It came to this blog attention that one government official and a top one had his home burglarised. It happened recently, but lets not give away clues, cause it could be as recent as yesterday or just few months ago.

Or maybe another hint can be given. He was burglarised the second time within a short time frame.

When police came to the house, he reported one of his Platinum Rolex watch was stolen. Our busy body source searched around and found that the market price for the watch cost RM280,000.

Those who can't afford one will not bother to know about prices of Rolex. However, it is not difficult to check. Just browse for Rolex watch quote on the watch quote.com to have a ballpark figure. If none available, there is always e-Bay or google.

Malaysian price will have to adjust for currency exchange of RM4 for USD1 and GST.

Maybe the Chinese retailer top-up another 6% to cover for the possibility it will take too damn long to get back GST rebate from Custom. Their system is in a mess because the Director General was so hard-up to have a completely new system (not just up-grade).

The economical need to spend additional RM300 million is too tempting for Ministry of Finance officials. Now it is not ready in time (but still given 14 months extension).

If it is a rich tycoon spending RM280,000 for a watch, what the hell. But self-made tycoon may not want to spend so much.

It reminded us quite some time ago in Hong Kong. We were in a Departmental Store (Dragon, if memory did not fail us) looking at some new branded Italian shoes. Then we notice Lee Ka Shing at the other end looking at bargain shoes area. It made us stopped and leave.

If it is an underworld boss, whose money is flowing like water by living off their illegal activities carried out by their underlings, it is understandable. They have got too much money but can't spend and show off. So they buy Rolex watches to keep in the safe. Untong is the Mistress.

They can be so unassuming that they have no class. But when they got the chance to spend they can really spend. Like buying RM7,000 per bottle of wine or liquor, but request to drink wine with ice and having the liquour with coke.

If it is a Government Official, then the question would be can he afford one? A Government Official working in a Government Department or Ministry may or may not afford one. If he could afford one, he could be the most imprudent manager of his finances or corrupt.

These days the corrupt Government Officials are smart. The Ministry's TKSU 2 and TKSU 3 collaborate with their kaki inside Ministry of Finance and the KSU and Ministers get the blame. They get the kickbacks. The businessman made their cut. China got the out source business and breach into our security.

If he is working at the top of a government lined company, he could afford one too but it is not prudent spending. A salary man losing perspective on the value of money. It reflects badly on him.

Still, he should not be flounting around in a Rolex, which everyone knows to cost RM280,000. It attracts the wrong vibes on him especially when there are people in the interiors of Sarawak like in Sungai Assap, despite having electrical cables from Bakun and Murum dam hovering over their heads, still have no electricity.

It is bad for business. See what happen to Jho Loh. From a new year party in Manhattan that caught the attention of New York Post, it attracts nosy investigators. A problem one do not need, wrongly or rightly, guilty or innocent.

It is possession like this that reflects on the psyche of a person. Those indulging in spirituality practise of Sufism or other versions for other religion would not want to own something destructive on the soul.

The incident between Sarawak and Petronas on the sacking of local Sarawakians is a fine example of corporation without soul and sensitivity. It is likely driven by the arrogance of someone at the top. Heaven sake, that was the state ruling party campaign promises. How could a government linked company be insensitive?

Off course, not saying that someone in Petronas got their home broken in Rolex stolen. Maybe not, and maybe so, since Petronas is also a government linked company.

Humility is necessary. Sensitivity is a must. Be aware of the environment and reality of our surrounding.

This is Malaysia, not Barbella Spain. Langkawi is not yet Monte Carlo.

Even if it wish to be a Monte Carlo, think of the Langkawi folks. They should benefit from it, not just be by standers and outsiders benefit immensely. What happen to the lofty plans to have a social trust for Amanah Saham Anak Langkawi?

To conclude, the integrity of someone is not dependent on their profession. Even professionals can be crooks and heartless but they are not getting sufficient blame. It comes down to the individual, his sincerity and purity of intention.

Our June 29th posting [read here] refers.

It was the posting about Banker I that used to head Bank H and then moved up into the shareholder S organisation.

Banker I was supposed to represent S on the Board of Director of Bank H. There was no plan to make him Bank H Chairman, just a member of the Board of Director.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) rejected that arrangement. Last week, there was a report related to this issue.

Sorry couldn't get the original Straits Times report. Just FMT's reporting of ST report:

Will new BNM rules affect Nazir Razak’s future at CIMB?

FMT Reporters | Aug 11, 16 10:37am

A Straits Times report says the move to demarcate the separation of powers between board and management of banks has ‘implications’ on his future as chairman of CIMB.

KUALA LUMPUR: New Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) guidelines may impact on Nazir Razak’s position as CIMB Group chairman next year, according to a report in The Straits Times.

Under the Bank Negara rules issued early this month, chief executive officers of financial institutions are prohibited from taking over as chairmen of the board of directors.

The guidelines also stipulate that financial institutions must have a majority of independent directors on their respective boards, the report said.

The ST report said that while the rules were not expected to be applied retroactively, they could have “implications” for Nazir “when his position as director on the board comes up next year for renewal by the bank’s nomination committee.”

The report however does not explain what these implications are.

Nazir, who is the younger brother of Prime Minister Najib Razak, served as CIMB’s CEO between 1999 and 2014, before becoming chairman of the group.

The report said CIMB executives did not respond to requests for comment on how the bank intended to deal with the new guidelines.

The guidelines, said the report, were aimed at demarcating the separation of powers between the board and the management.

A senior central bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the ST that Bank Negara wanted to avoid situations where a “chairman could be in a position to oversee policies that were put in place when that person was CEO.”

The report said the new rules had forced Najib’s administration to appoint Abdul Wahid Omar chairman of government trust fund agency Permodalan Nasional instead of chairman of Maybank.

The ST report quoted unnamed senior aides of Najib as saying the prime minister had originally planned to appoint Abdul Wahid, who was minister in the prime minister’s department in charge of economic planning, as chairman of Maybank when he stepped down from the Cabinet in June.

However as Wahid had been president and CEO of Maybank between 2008 and 2013, they appointed him chairman of Permodalan Nasional Berhad instead.

----------------

Unfortunately, it was retrospectively applied to a larger extreme on Banker I and shareholder S. Nazir is no more of interest but only that of Banker I, Bank H and institutional shareholder S.

Lets wait for this policy announcement. It better be more inclusive, if you know what we mean.

...... Malaysia National Organisation.

It's the UMNO Division meetings season and same as last time, the speeches at the official opening gets the media attention. What was discussed at the meeting will not get covered.

The theme this years seemed to be about unity. The subject is unity against foreign intervention and against a new political party to mean unity but in Malay as in Bersatu.

If the unity against foreign intervention relates with DOJ filing to "freeze" stolen asset of Arabs from money remitted by 1MDB, then it is politicising a legal issue which we had long argued as improper on the anti-Najib Campaign to politicise.

If it is intended to mean threat from ISIS, China and US on the 9-dash line dispute, foreign funded smugglers, gangsters and political operators guise as human rights activist, etc, then it is fine.

As far as the unity against the new party of Tun Dr Mahathir, nyeh ...

If the detractors of Dato Najib and the UMNO expelled decided to gather together under a new political party, what is there to it?

The usual comments and critics making all sort of cliched remarks and attack on Bersatu can be loudly heard and at rapid pace. It will not last, it will follow the demise of Semangat 46, it is not the same strength as S46 and various other lessons from history of other off shoot of UMNO from PAS, Parti Negara, S56, and Adil being repeated.

The attack on Mahathir is no more holding back. The go signal may have come from Najib who in essence referred to him as a control-freak. The third party references has first party intention. Dato Rahman Dahlan told Mahathir that he should accept the fact that he is no more in power thus he should let go.

Tan Sri Muhyuddin made a reply to all these criticism to ask if Bersatu is of no relevance, why is UMNO afraid.

As much as the foreign intervention claim does not exist, as Foreign Minister, Dato Anifah Aman denied, and it is part of past political repertoire, Muhyiddin's reply is the same often heard political repertoire.

One critic claimed Bersatu will not sustain based on their only objective to topple Najib. If they are able to topple Najib and Pakatan Harapan manage to assume power at the federal level, what will happen?

Sometime ago, we told a friend, who would most likely follow Muhyiddin into Bersatu, that the mistake of past attempts to topple BN is consensus. There is no consensus on the ideology and lack the spirit of consensus, cooperation, and compromise.

The best way for them to seize power would be to emulate BN or have a BN II. This way majority of voters have no fear to any change in ideology or the unexpected. Penang DAP will be a shining example for BN to scare off Malays, Indians and even Chinese.

Better still, have a new improved BN. New improved detergent always push sales up. The winner of the next election will be those that offer a "Bersih, Cekap dan Amanah" government.

Off course, the condition inferred, but not stated to our friend, is for BN II to cut off from the past negative legacies of BN. It covers all aspects, especially the leaders must not only be clean but seen to be clean with no baggage from the past and no skeleton in their's and family's cupboards.

Maybe out of political expediency, it is not easy. Politics is always about compromise and accommodating to each others' interest, and principles. Power interest will result in major and moral compromises.

Be that as it may.

According to Malaysiakini report here, "Bersatu’s seven founding members explained the reasons the party was created, the key of which is to save Malaysia from Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak."

They made no bone about it is to bring Najib down. So the political argument will naturally be Bersatu is about politics of hate, they are power hungry, and the UMNO favourite terminology, orang-orang yang kalah lalu kecewa.

The seven claimed "Malaysia is known for its widespread corruption and for having a deplorable finance minister" so it leads to 1MDB.

The expected argument against them is they want to bring down Najib using 1MDB and when Najib is down, nothing will happen. Even DOJ will retract at the request of lobbyist after the US Presidential election and new President takes over in January.

Then there will be issues of budget slash, cost of living increase, GST, no democrasy and no rule of law. Missing for quite sometime from Mahathir side have been BR1M, and Sirul the murderer of Altantunya.

The seven outlined their objectives as below:

We will return democracy and the rule of law.
All weaknesses (in the system) that can be misused by elected leaders will be dismantled.
Fiscal management will be governed by laws and new rules so that the prime minister or ministers cannot conceal any expenditure.
Transparency will be practised in all matters.
Education and training will be provided on a large scale to all races so that they can obtain employment with remuneration in tandem with their productivity.
Sufficient aid will be provided to the poor and disabled.
Scholarships for higher learning will be provided to all according to their needs.

And more will be coming. So far, it is generally no different from what Najib is doing. In fact, some UMNO politician already claim they are merely copycats. Why not?

They say, “We believe we have the experience and ideas to rehabilitate the economy and national politics, which we will disclose from time to time."

By the presence of Anina, Kamarul, Akramsyah, and Syed Saddiq as the protem commitee, it may not exude much confidence. As we understand it, it only serve to speed up the ROS approval by presenting people with the least excuse to delay.

The claim Dato Khairuddin Abu Hasan not joining because he has issue with Muhyiddin leadership is all wayang. The real McCoy and it includes potential ahli Bersekutu will appear later.

The challenge for them will still be to put the political infrastructure - membership, leadership, branches, network, money (though RPK claim Mahathir has got RM5 billion for this endeavour), various political operation talents, regulation and manuals, etc.

The real politik part have to be addressed or it will catch on them. It is not easy beating the odds. Tricks such as having an open house at Kodiang wet market to gather crowd and give impression of wide support will not work. People know you only return to see the constituency after getting sacked. After that, malas ....

Furthermore, public are increasingly able to read shallow perception play easily and are in a state of political fatique to layan these cheap politics.

If the substance is lacking and psywar needed to be used, be more sophisticated. Not bad on the lawsuit by Matthias and Husam except that it is a wrong choice to use phony Husam.

On the issue of can they emulate BN, already they are getting bombarded for Pribumi status [read here. and here]. Lim Kit Siang or Ibrahim Suffian's defense of Bersatu policy can be turned around as saying they are only playing a spoiler role for the DAP as the real beneficiary.

DAP will still and always be the thorn in any Malay Muslims party coalition, perception or real. They will never agree to another BN or another UMNO, MCA. MIC, PBB, etc. As they promised, Bersatu should clear up all these fundamental issues to the public before election.

Though some claim Pribumi means the same with Bumiputera, it is frequently used in Sabah and Sarawak to imply no foreign impurity. Pribumi seldom associated with any legal definition, unlike Bumiputera, but the criteria could be more stringent.

It is tough to emulate another BN thus the question which Mahathir failed to tell his blogger-supporter and Raja Petra is who after Najib. There are those out there still believe in the conspiracy theory that it is all about making way for Mukhriz and Muhyiddin will get slashed later.

It will never end ...

For sake of democrasy, the more the merrier. Biarlah Bersatu wujud dalam aman.

If it means they are also another of Mahathir's UMNO as in United Malaysian Native Organisation, it is a healthy competition for Mahathir's UMNO Baru. Good wake up call, timely for honest reflection and supposed to make them work harder. Good speeches for last weekend, Dato Zahid Hamidi.

Just do not take Mahathir lightly and enter into a slumber into thinking the opposition split will make it an easy two third win. Bersatu is there to split UMNO voters!

Sometimes we like to think that there is more than just what we see in public. Who knows what is cooking among just a couple of people?

* Edited 17/8 9:23 AM

The Mole's recent posting [read here] of Deputy Home Minister Dato Nurjazlan Mohamed commenting that government will not allow Malaysian passport be made in China made us re-look our posting on the same issue [read here].

To partly answer the question as to who is to blame, MMO dated August 8th reported Jazlan slamming "the company responsible for supplying passports to the Immigration Department — Datasonic ..."

Their contract was to begin December 1st and Iris contract expired in June.

How could Home Ministry allow the period between the end of a contract and the beginning of a new contract a gap of almost 6 months?

In The Star report dated August 4th, Datasonic used that excuse to claim "they are not the current principal supplier of the Malaysian passport booklets and chips to the Home Ministry but supplies polycarbonate data pages with chips to the Government."

They claim they are the subcontractor to Percetakan Keselamatan Nasional to imbed chip into the polycarbonate page of the passport.

The chips came from Trub AG Switzerland and reject rate very low. The report has various figures of production.

Since the company offered to supply the passports earlier to “familiarise themselves with the system” and “to build a stockpile of passports”, Nurjazlan is right to ask, as reported by MMO: "Why did they offer when they were not prepared to do so?"

Datasonic claim that the shortage were due to 6-days raya vacation at PKN does not make sense. If there is an order, PKN would have built up a stockpile before going off for Raya.

Has PKN been slacking now that their contract is only an extension for June 1st to Nov 30th? Or Datasonic passing the blame?

The company usually give this statement to Bursa:

"The contract is subject to normal business risks such as increase in cost due to any escalation of material costs and contractual terms including default provisions. As such, the management would put in place control measures and operational procedures to reduce the impact or likelihood of such events."

With markets very volatile these days, who can do anything about say, currency fluctuation?

Monopoly

In The Star report dated December 15th, 2015, Datasonic informed Bursa Malaysia that they were awarded 5 year contract from December 2016 to November 30 2021 to supply Malaysian passport chips.

The same report highlighted that Datasonic "secured a five-year contract through an open tender to supply 10 million new passport polycarbonate datapages with laser engraving personalisation equipment to the Immigration Department from February 2013 to January 2018".

MMO reported that "Effective December 1, Datasonic will take over PKN’s role as the main contractor by printing and supplying passports to the department."

It seemed The Star reported on April 27th 2016 that Datasonic "secured a RM223.38mil deal from the Home Affairs Ministry to supply Malaysian passport documents over the same five-year period starting Dec 1, 2016, or 13.416 million units."

Isn't it worrisome that one company control the whole integrated process of supplying the passport, chip and chip-imbedded polycarbonate page, database and customising of the passport?

Do we not have local chip producer and at cheaper price? Heard we have ...

It reminded us of companies being awarded contract to print CD, VCD, DVD and etc. under license from foreign companies holding the rights.

While they manufactured under contract, at the same time, for every one original, it was said these companies manufactured and distributed ten fake at cheaper price.

Can the same happen here?

More worrisome, Datasonic is also the supply for raw polycarbonate MyKad from 2014 to 2016. In May they were awarded RM206 million contract to supply 12 million cards.

Every official identity documents of the countries is basically supplied by one company. Isn't that scary and a security nightmare?

These are publicly available news. Sue the newspaper if all these are wrong.

What were the officials at Home Ministry doing? Whose Ministry is responsible for security?

Or will the blame go to official at Ministry of Finance?

It is heard that a CEO of a company involved in a tender could be present in a Tender Board meeting and be given room to rubbish his competitor. He is not at fault but what is the official doing?

BN could lose more middle class votes if government officials continue to behave and act this way.

A couple of weeks ago, we had tea with a distant cousin. His employment contract had expired. In slightly more than 10.years, he quadrupled the company's asset.

He is taking his time to consider options and catching up to socialise with friends. The conversation of Tan Sri Wahid Omar, 52 replacing Tun Ahmad Sarji, 78 came up and cousin said something worthy to be shared.

If Tun Abdul Razak, Tun Daim and later, Tan Sri Mohamed Nor Yakcop could take young people under their wings to give them the opportunity to excel, then he suggested Dato Najib should do the same.

In other word, the "old" have to make way and be on their own. Too many in the 60s to 80s still at the helm of government, politics and corporation at a time the 40 and below constitute more than 65% of the country.

It is time the young, more energetic, with fresh ideas, and willing to learn, adapt and be tactful to takeover. By the way, many young proven former CEOs are currently out of job.

Seeing how SPAD handled the taxi versus Uber issue, could it be because the SPAD Chairman is 72 or it is Syed Hamid?

However, established organisation like Petronas can be grumpy and insensitive despite having young CEO like Dato Wan Zul, 56.

Few months ago Sarawak just had a state election and it is improper to fire so many Sarawak staff to be replaced by junior staff from Semenanjong as claimed by Facebook Suarah.

As far as the standoff on working permit to work in Sarawak for Petronas staff, there is likelihood Tan Sri Dato Patinggi Adenan Satem, 72 over reacted.

However, the comment made by Olympic bronze medalist cyclist, Azizulhasni demonstrate both arrogance and immaturity.

It should be interesting to have a public debate on sports funding. Too much discussion on the unresolved issue of political funding.

Back to Syed Hamid, SPAD and taxi vs Uber.

Owner of Blue Taxi, Dato Shamsulbahrin Ismail opposed to the intention by SPAD to legalise "ride-sharing" Uber and Grab.

He threated to get taxi drivers to join Bersatu. Blogger In deep tots exposed Shamsul as the conman in the NFC episode.

Foolish of him in trying to politicise the issue. Blue Taxi has only 18,000 members but PERTEKMA has 60,000 claimed the blogger.

According to another taxi organisation, PERS1M, Syed Hamid failed to address the Uber issue since it came to being in 2012.

Taxi have been up in arms against Syed Hamid on the Uber issue. PERTEKMA members may not be supportive of government on something affecting their rice bowl.

Syed Hamid is said to always insist on being the forefront for SPAD. But recently, he failed to show up at a gathering of taxi for an engagement on the issue.

If he "chicken out", then there is no truth to the claim he is arrogant, rude and insensitive.

Dato Ismail Ismail Sabri would disagree. He did described Syed Hamid's arrogance for being stubborn and refused to explain and open.

Kodomo Lion couldn't shed his old ways of refusing to be questioned. A Din Merican posting in 2008 on him here.

Syed Hamid did explained that 75% of online survey claimed Malaysians choose Uber over taxi.

It is something the taxi has to take account and address the bad apple among them. However, it is unfair to allow these "prebet sapu" of the day to operate and now legalise them.

Taxis are against the idea of operating under the same rule as Uber and Grab. Taxi had a hardtime getting operating permit and constrained by quota.

As it is they are saddled with legacy issues [read here and here], pay various licenses, forced to use expansive parts and less durable Proton, meeting various regulations and constant hassled by authorities, corrupt or otherwise, now Uber ...

Existing taxis are faced with many rent seekers. They are in no position to compete with cost structure of less regulated Uber.

Taxis are right to demand SPAD to clean up their act first. They have been dragging their feet for the past few years. SPAD should not be listening to Nazri Aziz. He is the last person SPAD should listen to on the affairs of taxi.

However, how come CVLB in Sabah can understand them and express concern on the illegal encroachment on taxi's livelihood and infringement in rules?

But SPAD for Semananjung cannot understand? Liow agreed with Sabah CVLB policy but succumb to SPAD?

Chairman Dato Raimi Unggi was said to view Uber as foreign colonisation and forcefully "grabbing" the livelihood of Malaysians. He believes Uber must follow the rules.

There are taxi drivers taking SPAD to court to demand them to enforce the rules. Uber withdraw the bid in the lawsuit. They should because they should not view taxi as adversary.

Uber drivers are in a rent seeking arrangement. Who is behind Uber in Malaysia? At least, we know Tan Chong is behind Grab.

Why Uber in Malaysia differ from the concept of original Uber? Hear what Wahid Omar had to say about Uber charges.

Taxi may have their views but they should improve their service and match the manner Indonesian taxi drivers in Jakarta serve their clients. And they drive Vios and Camry!

Young MP Raimi's move to defend the lawfully allowed taxi drivers turned out for the better.

Subsequently, he could tell taxi drivers that they cannot run away from such threat as Uber forever and buck up.

That made them realised the need to improve service. Wisdom is not the monopoly of the old.

According to Paul Tan, SPAD have a long term plan to resolve the problem in the form of TITP to liberalise taxi and regulate Uber/Grab and liberalise insurance rates.

Official told FMT that SPAD is seeking a fairer deal for taxi.

Sounds better and softer. Good start though not much of TITP is on the table to be viewed. SPAD officers used to say they can't do much on the legacy issues from past administration.

But for heaven sake, Syed Hamid, don't say cliche statement from the past like "keputusan kerajaan muktamad". It gives the impression government is hard, non-negotiable and non accomodative.

One indie young man gave a poser: Why public could comply with Uber but SPAD failed to control taxi? While taxi driver is angry with SPAD because of Uber, ironically the Uber people need SPAD.

Think about it.

It's almost a month since we wrote anything on 1MDB.

The last being about SC's incompetence on July 27th here in which an "expert" claimed there is no need for SC supervision since it was issued abroad.

Earlier, there were three postings directly related to the DOJ filing here, here, and here.

Much have been covered, pro or con-sides of whether to judge Dato Najib as guilty for being the MO1 or allow the due process.

According to FMT report here, lawyer to Matthias Chang and Dato Husam Musa, Dato Zainur Zakaria claimed Riza and Jho Loh will appear in the US court today with regard to the DOJ filing.

Politicised

At the UMNO Titiwangsa Division meeting yesterday, Dato Johari Ghani gave a strong comment on 1MDB.

We have heard it before and excerpt from The Star report below:

"There is no value to my position if I conspire to defend any such leader and we should never forgive this individual," he said.

However, he was quick to say that one cannot be emotional in demanding action against any party without concrete evidence.

"We need to wait (for the investigation to conclude), because offences were also committed in foreign countries.

"This business transaction (of 1MDB) is very complex as it involves different jurisdiction, different countries and different laws," he said.

However, Johari said he holds on to the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty.

"We shouldn't accuse of anybody without any concrete evidence and we shouldn't use politics to topple any leader," he said.

Johari also took the opportunity to slam 1MDB's administration, saying the problems afflicting the state investment body was largely due to its poor business model and overall bad governance.

"The problem with 1MDB is that it is poorly managed. Mangkuk hayun (stupid).

"But let me be honest here. The weak management, despite being paid handsomely, will never admit mistakes when it occurs and it is us who have to answer for them," he said.

Early in the month, a friend sent us a link here to a blog by former Abrar Managing Director, Dr Wan Hasni that discussed the issue at length in 8 parts.

The attraction of the blog was it's approach and honesty "to focus on financial transaction matters and not the political matters."

In part 6 here, where he offers possible solution, he wrote, "The biggest mistake of how we all treat the 1MDB affair is to politicize it."

The intention of Tun Dr Mahathir to raise the 1MDB is good so that Najib do not get sucked easily into a too-good-to-be-true or easy money financial schemes.

When it is politicising, conspiring to topple the government and taking a stand in conflict with past views and positions, it is a different ball of wax.

More so, Islam has rooms for leaders to mend their ways [read here].

On whether Najib had made a major mistake, thus the need to topple him, that is up for debate.

Those already judging him guilty say it should be done. The other side of the argument claims 1MDB had not made a loss and they are not making claim on the asset to be seized by DOJ.

In Part 8 here, where he discuss possible solution, Wan Hasni wrote:

The Malaysian AG has cleared Dato’ Sri Najib from any criminal wrong doings in relations to 1MDB. So let us accept this as a fact, until proven otherwise.

Wan Hasni explained DOJ claimed that the exercise is to return the money back to 1MDB, but it looks more to be the Arab money that got siphoned away.

Item 5 in Part 1 here explained it well.

Why did DOJ say that? Conspiracy? Bear in mind, we expressed our wariness of DOJ here.

Wan Hasni did wrote in Item 6 Part 1 that a class action by any one party will complicate matters. Wan Hasni felt the complainant to DOJ is Abu Dhabi, not Matthias and Khairuddin.

However, in the lawsuit involving Goldman Sach, is Matthias and Husam out to politicise it more?

In Part 8, Wan Hasni wrote: THE POLITICKING OF 1MDB ISSUES DO NOT SOLVE 1 MDB’S TROUBLE. IT ONLY AGGRAVATES THE SITUATION AND COULD POTENTIALLY PRECIPITATES ITS FAILURE, INSTEAD OF ITS SURVIVAL.

It would be considered as irresponsible politics to be willing to see a government entity fail and foreign government interfere in our affairs.

Wan Hasni's series is worthy read as he simplifies the financial issues for the layman:

Part 1: US DoJ & 1MDB Civil Suit
Part 2: The Transactions
Part 3: IPIC vs 1MDB saga
Part 4: 1MDB bonds
Part 5: The Brunei Amedeo saga
Part 6: 1MDB - What needed to be done: Politics
Part 7: 1MDB - What needed to be done: Economic management
Part 8: 1MDB - What needed to be done: Possible solutions

Conspiracy?

At the end of it all, most of Wan Hasni's recommendations are what PAC and MOF is doing. He also highlighted the risk of government guarantees for commercial purpose.

But the politicking is not ending till their objective to topple Najib is met.

YB Dato Ariff Sakmongkol of DAP applied article 117 of the M&A of 1MDB in his blame of Najib.

However, the operational part is what was made known to Najib and what was not made known could be something else. Najib or MO1 may have agreed in principle but execution that deviated from what was agreed was done by others.

Accepting donation is not necessary legally wrong but the receiver should be judicious to know where the money came from and be suspicious of unknown donors.

Anyway as Tun Musa recently revealed the good practices of political fund raising turned bad during Mahathir's time.

Undoubtedly, the onus is on accuser to legally prove Najib is aware of the wrongdoings and the source of donation is absconded money.

As far as the DOJ filing, it is 1MDB officials that is doing all the illegal transactions with full knowledge and they could be going around to absolve themselves.

It is also mentioned that one of the 1MDB official got a piece of the ADMIC money!

We recently met a corporate businessman who looks up to Mahathir with much adoration.

He told us Mahathir told him all these two years ago. That would be in 2014.

In the DOJ filing, all the transaction and complicated money flow occurred in three phases and in various tranches.

The first Goodstar phase occurred in 2009-11, IPIC Aabar in 2012 and final Tamore phase in 2013 was September 2013 after the general election.

Why did he waited till last year 2015 to voice his concern?

The likes of us knew he met the IPP taukeh in Argentina before the election and heard their complains.

During the election, the usual donors hardly contributed much to BN. A source in the know claimed Tan Sri Vincent Tan's donation was hardly six figure. Dato Danny gave more to DAP.

It was also heard that Najib was reluctant to accept some of the corporate figures donations because it comes with demands they are used to ask for decades.

They expect it to come with promises of contracts. That is why in the past stock market was bullish before election. It is supposed to be uncertain but they played the market up based on stories of promised contracts.

Perception can become real as bullish investors invested in the market will make sure BN win.

Maybe this time, smart alec Jho Loh was able to sell to Najib that he can raised some money without the strings attached. All he need to do was the opportunity and all looks clean and legit.

Najib's mistake maybe for not being technically competent to understand. He over rely and trusted limited few. If, and still an if, that is the case, it is not necessary a crime.

We were aware that Mahathir met opposition leaders to plan out his political assault in early last year.

That was way before meeting bloggers including Raja Petra in London. That only made RPK felt the timing has to do with Mukhriz loss for Vice President.

Political motivation of Mahathir is obvious especially when Najib made a recent statement on his more consultative approach to foreign policy.

Nothing infuriate the old man than seeing Malaysia being friendly with Singapore and US. Off course, for political expediency, he has recently turned around to be critical of China. It is more for Edra than 9-dash line territory claim

We have seen plans for national re-consolidation and now resetting of government. All our life we have seen endless quarrels of Mahathir against sitting PMs and his Deputies.

Not again.

Repeating the same gets boring. This time let the rule of law takes its course, not power politics or street revolution.

Over the weekend, we have taken the liberty to re-read the filing again. Those interested to re-read can get it here.

An analysis by Cilisos sometime back [will find link] concluded that the information in the DOJ filing is almost the same with information in Sarawak Report.

Their poser was: Is SR still lying? Off course they are saying DOJ report is true so SR is not lying.

DOJ filing basically confirm transactions that flow in US dollar. However, are the reasons behind the transaction known or DOJ followed SR's story?

What will be Jho Loh and Riza's explanations?

It is still puzzling as to why two people that are supposedly intelligent and well educated at prestigous schools could be so dumb as to do a one or two-layered money flow to abscond money?

We would have done with several more with thrown in a couple more off-shore centres accounts.

Worse, they were using textbook scam to use similar named companies as cover.

Are they dumb and stupid or confident what they are doing are legal? Until it is explained well, public will not believed nothing illegal intended.

The due process will be when Jho Loh and Riza make their defense and unravel the other side of the story. If there are nothing, the criminal process will begin.

Wan Hasni did clarify on the jurisdiction and the relevant applicable US laws. He did his doctorate in the states and established Abrar in Connecticut to manage Arab funds.

But the country to do the criminal charges may be somewhere else.

Awaiting news from US ...

The new MACC Chief Commissioner, Datuk Dzulkifli Ahmad was sworn in yesterday but he could be remembered by this iconic image on the frontpage of Utusan Malaysia on August 14, 2016.

With the stern look and deep eyes, Dzulkifli offer the corrupt through the Utusan reporter [read here] to surrender or MACC is coming after them with MACC Act and AMLA for money laundering to freeze, and seize properties obtained through corruption.

By now, the DOJ filing must have given the public some familiarity with money laundering and freeze and seize of assets.

Within days, Dzulkifli did not give his critics long enough time to ramble. He started raiding and gave a signal that he mean business.

It is supposed to be a good thing but how will the public react? Will MACC be allowed to do their work without public pressure applied by vested interest or public sentiment?

When MACC was investigating 1MDB and SRC, there was much hue and cry from certain pro-Najib side.

The tone changed and protoon and opposition went on offense the moment Attorney General announced no case against Najib in MACC's investigation.

When it was Lim Guan Eng being investigated, DAP side went on a conspiracy accusation against the BN federal government.

Wonder how will the public, particulary Siti Nurhliza fans, should Dato K is held under remand for corruption or money laundering investigation? How will the politics be like?

Without waiting a day, Penang Deputy CM, P Ramasamy already shrugged Dzulkifli off as attempting a 'Duterte', the new Philipines President that is loudly fighting crime. He should have given the new MACC boss a chance but it can be understood.

When Tun Abdullah assume the premiership in 2003, he attempted a similar swoop that saw former Deputy Minister Tan Sri Kasitah Gaddam being charged.

Remembered Tan Sri Sanusi saying, "Interesting ..." when asked of the development on his former Deputy at Eastin. In 2009, Kasitah was acquited.

For the time being, Dzulkifli will be seen the wrong way because he was present next to Tan Sri Apandi Ali at the PC when it was announced there was no case in MACC's report.

Sources say Dzulkifli called it as it is without fear or favour when MACC couldn't answer and explained his queries. The previous MACC investigating team dumped IP on the Lim Guan Eng's Pinhorn home case without providing any brief and recommendation.

Dzulkifli was heading the Taskforce to address leakage but same source claimed none of his cases were allowed be charged by "someone". In fact, he was cold storaged under Jessica Kaur in a Bangsar office.

All this could be lost in the frenzy politics to topple Dato Najib using the 1MDB case despite DOJ filing said only persons concerned is mentioned by name in the case.

Off course, they will be those insisting receiving donation as illegal though unable to quote any section of any law to say it is prohibited. The simplistic layman excuse is the perceived differences in explanatory statements from few Ministers.

By right, it need be legally proven that Najib is in the know of the illegal transactions in the embezzlement of Arab funds from 1MDB remittance.

Nevertheless, Sin Chew saw the sincerity in Dzulkifli as they highlighted of his intention to be more pro-active.

New MACC boss will not wait for a formal complaint to launch an investigation.

The Utusan report coincided with his inaugral working visit to Kepala Batas, his hometown. At the program "merakyatkan SPRM", he explained his position.

"The issue of corruption is the people's issue...MACC will be together with the people to protect them against the corrupt.

"At the same time, we will also ensure that we are feared by the corrupt and fight corruption to the end."

Dzulkifli couldn't contain himself when he shared the advise of his late father.

A day earlier, Utusan had reported on his intention to clean-up the civil service. The abuse have become so endemic that government officials are not shy and have no fear to flaunt their expensive watch.

Few days earlier, a former MACC officer was charged for duping two individuals to give away their cars five years ago. The need to bring in outsider and bring up from within MACC was necessary to restructure, clean-up and up-grade the organisation.

No need to expand as it will only "aib" (shame) people from the past. It was a right move to hands off and not burn the mosquito net. Time to move forward in the fight against corruption.

Before the current round-up, four businessman was held for taking kickbacks to secure PPR housing in Jinjang Selatan.

The swoop begin with this big headline as three public official had their asset frozen and seized in Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and Kelantan.

Frozen are deposits of unit trusts of between RM1 to RM6 million and totalling RM13 million. Seized also are luxury condominiums including penthouse, banglow together with luxury cars of Maserati, BMW dan Audi.

The KL case involves a DBKL officer with a Dato Seri title.

FT Minister, Dato Tengku Adnan Mansor told the press that his position will be temporarily replaced. He gave a surprise statement to compliment the officer.

For heaven's sake Ku Nan, the Dato Seri officer allegedly owned 31 condominiums worth RM15.5 million!

And he was defensive against open tender and gave opposition a field day. PKR communication director wanted Ku Nan to reveal projects approved by the Dato Seri officer.

This blog is still awaiting Ku Nan to answer the long list of questions raised on a certain luxury condo project in a site meant for "mampu milik" homes.

The Dato Seri was held for additional five more days under remand.

The Kelantan case involved a senior TNB officer. Since then, an engineer and two technicians are held under remand to assist investigation related to the same case.

In Melaka, a 56 year old former Department Director is held under remand for a week to assist investigation. Cash of RM64,000 are found in the attic of his home.

Yesterday, his remand was extended by 5 more days.

At the same time, a former lady Deputy Director for Administration and Finance for the Melaka Stadium is being charged on four counts of corruptions.

As far as the three cases, Director for Investigation at MACC, Dato Azam Baki, 19 more including the 3 remanded TNB officer have been identified to "assist invetigation".

They include 3 developers in Kuala Lumpur, 10 contractors in Malacca and 6 more including business owners and government officers in Kelantan.

Azam was reported today saying their are probing several DBKL officer in cohoot with developers. Hope MACC read this posting and see the link with questions.

It has certainly been a good start for Dzulkifli. It is said that he has files of documents ready awaiting for time and turn to raid.

Last week, Azam did say MACC will be going for more big sharks in the civil service and GLCs.

The passport fiasco is believed to involve those at the top in civil service i.e. KSU or TKSU level. An IT contract could likely involve a Minister. If they dare, they will be pursuing where their predecessor dare not.

In the meantime, they have called for questioning the husband of a popular actress. Touching any person to do with Siti Nurhaliza will be a different challenge.

MACC need to be strengthened in order to pursue more big fishes. Government shouldn't touch their budget if they are serious about raising or preserving government revenue.

By the look of it, Dato Zainur Zakaria is wrong. There was no Jho Loh or Riza Aziz appearing at a US court to submit their defense on Monday. Give them both a little more time. Dato Najib did say they are responsible to defend themselves.

And, it is a wee bit early to accuse the lawyer to Matthias Chang and Dato Husam Musa of duplicating his clients' habit of doing a wayang or political psywar.

Nevertheless, the Monday posting here could be expanded further.

Apart from repeating the same cautionary message, a theory on how Najib got interested with Jho Loh's financial "scheming' was discussed. However, after almost more than one year, the question as to why Tun Dr Mahathir attacked Najib has yet to be answered.

The pakatoon cybertrooper would like the public to believe that Mahathir is concerned for the country and the people. Try tell that to the people of Sabah and Sarawak who after more than 50 years in Malaysia, are still without proper roads, utilities and basic public amenities.

Maybe he is concerned.

Fine but, not to the point of destroying UMNO, doing actions that means going back on many of his words, and being more vindictive than his fight against Tun Abdullah.

It has to be more than that. Something more must be at stake. Ask any cynical UMNO member, they will ultimately say it is about money and wealth. Off course, power is involved and necessary. What is power without the loots of power?

To many of them, the phase, where a political fight is about principle, or differences of opinion on policy or even purely power for power sake, has long gone. As Tun Musa recently claimed, he resigned not because of irreconcilable differences but Mahathir's paranoia.

One of the reason being bandied about is Mahathir wants Dato Mukhriz to move up in the succession to be Prime Minister.

The possibilities are there but the marketing issue is the product is problematic.

Mukhriz is a weak leader and failed miserably as MB of Kedah. He kept losing in party elections but couldn't use the opportunity as MB to strengthen his politics. Spent more time in Kuala Lumpur and holidaying abroad than work.

Never mind Mukhriz.

Repeated few times in this blog is of a get-to-gather at a "ranch" in Argentina before election, where present were IPP taukehs.

So the takeover of IPPs by 1MDB is one possible reason. It is one of the possible legacy of Mahathir which Najib intend to dismantle, as Tan Sri Lim Kok Weng told him.

Maybe you guys would like to read back about Bara Aktif Sdn Bhd, a mysterious shareholder of YTL in this November 2015 posting here.

Facebooker Lim Sian See made an interesting posting on Ananda Krishnan, the taukeh of Powertek that was taken over by 1MDB and subsequently was sold to China in a debt restructuring exercise. There exist a mysterious shareholder too!

Did you know that companies such as Tanjong, Maxis and Astro are actually technically controlled by a foreign company?

The majority owner of these companies shares are owned by Usaha Tegas Sdn Bhd, which lists RM20 billion of assets.

But there are only two share holders of Usaha Tegas - a local company holding a massive TWO shares and the tax haven Jersey, Channel Islands incorporated company called Pacific States Investment Ltd owns the rest of the 9,999,998 shares.

Who owns Pacific States Investments from there on is also not publicly stated as such offshore ownership are not normally listed - but said to be controlled by Ananda Krishnan.

Who else owns shares in Pacific States Investments is also a mystery.

Usaha Tegas in itself was created in June 1984 and then two years later, it was given a Telco license and a 4D license, a pay TV license a lottery license. and also the Turf Club betting license.

In 1988, DBKL served an eviction notice to the Turf Club forcing them to relocate from the LEASEHOLD land which the govt had already claimed back in 1983 under the Land Acquisition act.

And then in 1989, another company called Seri Kuda was incorporated with Usaha Tegas being the majority shareholder.

This company was then allowed to buy the Jalan Ampang land for Rm100 million, pay RM200 million to convert the land to commercial freehold (total cost of RM300 million) and then in 1991, sell 51% to Petronas for a reported RM600 million.

Thus, expiring leasehold land that the govt was already claiming back at nominal cost under the land acquisition act suddenly cost the govt RM600 million for just 50% while the private company Usaha Tegas got to make a profit of RM300 million.

Thus a land that was already the govt's was sold to private company at cheap rates and then sold back at expensive price to govt within a few years.

Mahathir supporters are angry that govt land in TRX was sold cheaply to 100% govt owned company at higher prices but they remain strangely quiet that govt land was sold cheaply to private company and then sold back to govt at expensive prices.

Mahathir and Mahathir supporters are strange people.

There was once a Pasaraya Rakyat on the land

The Mahathir supporters should have tried to figure out the link between one Robert Tan and the current TRX land back then.

If Mahathir's issue against 1MDB is not about IPP and those familiar with 1MDB believed Ananda or whoever his mysterious partner is got a good deal out of the sales, could TRX land be the issue then?

To repeat again, as happened many times in the past, the reason/s behind most political quarrels may not necessarily be about the issues raised. They made you look right but they are moving to the left.

More so, having heard from many past corporate personalities, things were worse during Mahathir's time than the current allegation of embezzlement and money laundering of money from 1MDB.

Some cynics even say it is done by everybody, BN or opposition, but Mahathir was the first to do so in a big way.

During Pak Lah's time, many issues were raised against him, including his personal medical problem of sleep apnea was made fun off. After many years passed by, it turns out that it boils down to the double tracking project.

It was immediately cancelled when Pak Lah assumed office. By the time it was revived, the cost have gone up by more than a couple of billions in a normal price increase situation.

Water pipes on the causeway is a major legal and technical stumbling block for a bridge

And, there is also the crooked bridge of Johor.

This is still being raised but temporarily lost in Mahathir's sudden attempt to change his skin color from a Malay ultra dictator to a reformist and civil libertarian.

He denied it was him that locked away his enemy under ISA but blame it on the late Tan Sri Megat Junid. If only Megat soul could rise this malam jumaat to hold a press conference to reply that statement.

At the same time, Mahathir apologised for removing the power of the rulers thus unable to get the rulers to intervene on the 1MDB case and block the passing of a new securities law.

Sure ... because that would mean he would have lost in court against Tengku Razaleigh and he would have lost control of UMNO in the fight against Tengku Razaleigh and Tun Musa.

It is widely believed that there was cheating involved as Marina Yusof once wrote in her book.

As it turned out, he was trying to create controversies, even infuriate the Sultan and people of Johor for his Bangsa Johor remarks.

The reason was to divert attention from his statement admitting the existence of a conspiracy to fix and throw Najib in the slammer. He mentioned Najib should be sent to prison in the last session with blogger.

The remark could also be directed towards Sabah and Sarawak, two stronghold states of Najib. Only last week Marina Mahathir was put in a difficult situation when asked in an interview by Daily Express on the "Projek IC" his father was accused of masterminding.

One of the most polluted river in Malaysia at one time

Yes, lets not get diverted from the crooked bridge.

Only recently we were made known that Mahathir had water and irrigation expert look into the pollution of Sungai Segget in Johor Baru.

It was recommended that the bridge could improve water flow and rejuvenate the river.A source told us with confidence that "someone" stand to benefit handsomely in the multi-billions when the river is clean and beautiful again.

Someone representing the "someone" tried to get another someone to tell a government official to talk to the Singaporean. Mahathir can stop his criticism of Najib if the crooked bridge was resumed.

Who could that "someone" be?

Returning to Ananda and the mysterious shareholder, he or she is the lead to answer the puzzle as to why Mahathir is more vindictive of Najib than Pak Lah.

Otherwise, the answer would only be known after Najib is gone.

Maybe, it is that "someone" or after several more sophisticated structure than Jho Loh's one or two layered money flow, it will lead to that "someone".

Certainly, that "someone" have the financial resources to fund Bersatu. If the Chairman or President badly want to thump UMNO and BN, it is available at a heartbeat.

Is it not speculated and accused that 1MDB is a vehicle for Najib to raise campaign fund and lessen his reliance with Mahathir's proxies?

* Edited 26/8/2016 8:30 AM

There have been many postings on Dato Shafie Apdal, the former Minister and MP that survive politically by keeping his constituents to remain pauper to beg for his handouts and in return, ensures him votes. [For samples: read 2013 postings here and 2016 postings here, and here]

In these postings, the often used methodology in the alleged corrupt practices allowed to happen in the Rural Ministry (or today, Ministry of Rural and Regional Development or in short KKLW) could be described as "paper project".

The projects only exists on paper with documentations to show delivery made and work done but was not completely implemented or in certain instances, nothing was actually done at all. Documents could be created by simply bribing a local bloke a couple of hundred ringgit to sign.

Since it involves the rural areas or the interiors, there is no government officers to regularly check at the site. If officers were sent, the officers themselves could be the one pocketing the payment without delivering or installing anything.

On "paper project"

During the days of Tun Dr Mahathir's administration, there was a known plan to revive a river in Kedah. Fishes were supposed to be ordered from Thailand and released in the river. Payment was made good and heard it was in the millions. Not a single nemo found its way to the river.

The same modus operandi may have been at work in the reported RM100 million graft cases involving officers at the Ministry of Youth and Sports in March this year. The Ministry is heavily involved in organising events and that opened itself to such abuses.

This "paper project" have been going on forever but not many was ever heard caught. In what could be the first report detailing such "paper project" corruption ever to come across, MACC arrested a Managing Director of a GLC involved in such a scam.

An extract from an NST report (from Malaysian Digest here) below:

PUTRAJAYA: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has arrested a managing director of a government-linked company over alleged abuse of power and multi-million ringgit graft case. The “Datuk” was arrested at his Kuala Lumpur office at 2pm yesterday.

He is being investigated over his involvement in a tender related to a bank system and also over the publication of books related to a prominent political figure. MACC investigations director Datuk Azam Baki confirmed the arrest when contacted yesterday.

It is learnt that RM15 million was given to a publishing company, owned by an individual linked to the suspect

However, not a single copy of the book has been published. It is understood that the authorities have also frozen RM8.1 million from the bank accounts belonging to the suspect, as well as other individuals.

The GLC is believed to be a Bank with an initial R. Instead of supposedly be of service to the people, the MD seemed to consume his time with alleged acts of a common thief.

From past personal experience, printing companies have been rampantly involved in such corrupt practices. MACC should raid a couple of printing companies to set a good example and to scare off the rest.

The paper project at Bank R, which this time actually involved paper, were among the 12 remanded by MACC reported in MSM. NST report here provided more details of among 8 people being investigated on this "paper project".

Oil and Gas

At the same court, the magistrate granted a 5-day remand for the investigation of 8 people involved in Oil and Gas projects. An extract from NST below :

In another case, the magistrate also granted a five-day remand order against eight people, including a project manager and a manager of an oil and gas company, over another bribery case investigated by MACC.

The five men and three women, aged between 30 and 60, were arrested yesterday in Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Terengganu and KL.

It was learnt that that the suspects were involved in accepting kickbacks for a pipeline project worth RM76mil in the southern part of the country.

Is this a Petronas pipeline project?

For this type of projects, there is no compromise for non-delivery. The project manager is the key decision maker to approve the delivery and work done. Without his John Hancock, the supplier would not get paid by the finance people.

In the KKLW "paper project" to deliver water pipes in the interior of Sabah, suppliers would just load of the pipes but no installation or arrangement for water supply with local authorities made. The documents would likely show water already supplied to kampong folks!

Logging

Heard MACC have been pursuing the illegal and excessive logging in Gua Musang that resulted in the worse flood ever in Kelantan in December 2014. Glad that something is coming out of their effort. An extract from The Star report:

In a separate case in Kelantan, the MACC was looking into claims by orang asli that illegal loggers had tried to bribe them to keep silent about their activities in Gua Musang.

The orang asli alleged that they were offered cash, rice, tobacco and other essentials to keep their mouths shut, according to MACC state director Datuk Moh Samsuddin Yusoff.

“They tried to bribe everyone in the village but were refused.

“The village head lodged a report with the MACC,” he told reporters after a seminar on the integrity of deforestation yesterday.

That takes much effort by the orang asli to do the report and resist the bribe.

FMT quoted Moh complimented the orang asli, "The Orang Asli’s practice not to accept bribes shows they are of high integrity. I hope other communities are also aware of the dangers of accepting bribes."

If the orang asli in the interior could resist, there is no such thing as no choice and need to involve in "paper project" to "cari makan" as the often excuse by printers in urban areas.

The illegal loggers operating in the interior beyond the reach of the law have been employing new tactics. NST report:

MACC deputy chief commissioner (Management and Professionalism) Datuk Mohamad Jamidan Abdullah said instead of building a special camp as a timber collection centre like they used to do, the syndicate would now cut the trees and take the timber out of the forest on the very same day to prevent from being detected.

"Prior to this, they would cut and gather all the timber in one place. When they heard that the authorities were mounting an operation, they would bury the timber to prevent it from being seized.

DBKL

In the latest development on the massive DBKL raid, MACC Commissioner and Investigation Director, Dato Azam Baki Dato Azam was reported by FMT, below:

MACC investigation director Azam Baki told the daily that the officers, of various ranks, were believed to have been “milking” housing developers forced to deal with City Hall for various approvals, to get “free” condominium units, which were later sold at higher prices.

“Our investigations revealed that no less than 30 City Hall officers obtained condominium units through corrupt ways, without making any advance payments,” he said, adding that the units acquired, just by signing sales and purchase (S&P) agreements without any monetary transactions, would be sold at market value once the project was completed.

Some of the officers who would be called in soon had been bold enough to contact housing developers to ask for similar deals as their “boss”, despite them not having any working connection with the developers at all, he said.

That is more than the 19 reported earlier. Read previous posting here.

When asked of the probable hauling of 30 more DBKL officers, Malaysiakini quoted NST reporting reported Kuala Lumpur mayor, Dato Seri Mohd Amin Aziz saying no comment and "This whole mess has affected the morale of our staff."

Malaysiakini spinned the words with a commentary claiming the clean-up should be a morale boaster. It is fair comment but their intention is to subliminally politicise the issue and downplay Amin words DBKL will not interfere with MACC right to investigate.

Ignore and soldier on, MACC!

There will always be sceptics and the cynics making passing remarks of MACC mega raid on civil servants.

They will say MACC do not go after the big fish without knowing the Dato Seri with 13 condo and millions of cash is a #2 or #3 in DBKL and likely is part of the Little Napolean mentioned by Pak Lah in 2006 or our 2012 posting here described as PTD Mafia.

They have been the Sir Humphrey resisting the implementation or sabotaging policies by Cabinet. They have turned corrupt but most of the time politicians are being blamed and highlighted for corruption.

It cannot happen without collusion by civil servant. However, Ministers have the priviage of selecting the choice of top officers and in certain instances, have final say in certain decisions.

Ministers' family members or associates too are seldom blamed for corruption. But it would have not have happened if civil servants, particularly the fast promoting PTD officers are steadfast and non-compromisable in their principle and not easily tempted by the easy money.

To say the fish rots from the head, the top must include the KSN, KSUs, and TKSUs too. It is them turning a blind eye to allow retired colleagues easy access and abuse their relation with officers in service to be tender fixers for corporate taukeh.

As a result, Malaysian business community become addictive to giving bribes. New MACC head intend to pursue on givers too!

Despite what is being done, there will be those still insistent MACC only go for the "ikan bilis".

Operationally, it is not about big or small fish. The seize is not crucial but evidence is. Since today will be a Tangkap MO1 rally, they can't resist politicising a case off-shore of Malaysia and in a foreign court.

In spite what cynical remarks made on MACC, they should soldier on. Eventually the public will appreciate them.

MACC is suggesting that asset declaration particularly by top government servant should be done more frequently than the current practise of every 5 years. In The Sun report, Amin told them:

Meanwhile, the city mayor said DBKL was in the midst of updating the declaration of assets of its top management officers and the process was expected to be completed by next Friday.

"Of the total 26 directors, only 12 of them have yet to update their declaration of assets in our system. I have given them until next Friday to do," he added. — Bernama

The raid must have been good psychologically. Malacca CM, Dato Idris Haron called on the public to not speculate on corruption activities in the state. Our word of advise: monitor your boys!

Tengku Adnan has asked the public to be the eyes and ears for DBKL to take care of public properties. The public have been complaining of corruption in city halls for decades but PTD heading the outfit under PM Dept. seemed insulated.

Anina Saabudin's final say in her exchanges with Ku Nan is quite punchy and rib tickling. Rafizi's a wee bit sissy and poyo.

Just came across news report on the death of Toots Thielemans at MMO here.

Glad that we had the opportunity to watch this jazz harmonica great when working abroad many years ago. First heard of Toots in the theme song of the American classic movie, Midnight Cowboys back in school.

At the time we were exploring the music of Jaco Pastorius in the album, Word of Mouth, the collaboration of Jaco and Toots in Three Views of a Secret and Sophisticated Lady led us further to the jazz side of Toots' work.

We learned of Toots when we then subscribed to the Jazz musicians' magazine, Downbeat. Hear Toot playing John Coltrane's Giant Steps and Charlie Parker's Ornithology. More in his Trilogy collection.

Toots career spanning over seven decades can be found in Wikipedia here and the news reports on the day of his death, August 22nd in NYT, The Australian from AP/AFP, Billboard, Downbeat magazine, and Jazzwise Magazine.com

Our favourite must be his most reknown 1961 composition, Bluesette [see video above]. There is also a version where he play the guitar and whistle. Toots also played in the closing theme of Sesame Street.

A dedication from the Chicago-based blog The Vociferous Envoy:

The Legacy of Toots Thieleman

By Charles W. Johnson, Tuesday at 6:21 am

You’ve heard the work of Jean “Toots” Thielman, you may not know who is he was but he was one of the musicians who was everywhere and worked with everyone. He was on commercials, pop music, jazz music, even performed the theme to the iconic children’s show Sesame Street.

His work was featured in many movies including classics like "Midnight Cowboy"& "The Pawnbroker".

He just passed at 94 years old.

He is a jazz master and music icon.

Yes he primarily played jazz, harmonica and whistler and no there aren’t many other musicians like that, not back in the day and certainly not now.

He was an in demand musician until a couple of years ago when he retired, which was for almost 70 years. The New York Times stated “that his body was worn out”.

I first heard of him over 20 years ago via Quincy Jones and his masterful collaboration work “Q’s Jook Joint”. Seems Toots & Q went way back when Q had big bands in Europe in the 1950’s & 60’s. That was Toot’s hey day and he had a huge hit song “Bluesette” back in 1961 that is now a jazz standard.

Toots had the one thing that makes jazz special, an unmistakable sound. Obviously since he played an instrument that is not common and he played it so well, he was his own genre.

For those of us who know R&B you know the harmonica of Stevie Wonder and in blues music some people call it a “mouth organ”.

But the sounds that instrument makes in those forms of music is great and has its own sound.

Toots used the harmonica to create his own legacy and you knew at the first note it was him.

And its not like the harmonica can lead a song or band like in the blues, its more accompaniment in jazz, like it is with R&B, you hear the great Stevie Wonder “solo out” for a few chords or chime along at a “bridge” or a “riff”. You have to basically jump in a song like a moving train, groove with it and jump off all while making a smooth transition and not ruining the song.

Not to make playing the harmonica sound like living like a hobo on the rails but you get the idea.

Toots could bring so much to a song with his playing, he added that one touch that made good songs great and made a good group of musicians a “tight band”.

The best example of this is my favorite Toots CD, and one of his last from 10 years ago aptly titled “One More for the Road”. This got heavy airplay on satellite and subscription music back then.

It’s a beautiful CD that highlights the work of the underappreciated songwriter Harold Arlen and my favorite is the last song on the CD, “Over the Rainbow”.

Toots said in an interview some years ago that some his own ballads made him cry and to me that’s what the best jazz ballads can do.

For years I listened to his version of Over the Rainbow before I went to bed, it just put me in the right mood, got me passed my day and ended it on the right note, literally.

This year we have lost some of the greatest musicians to ever walk the earth and entertain us with a song, add Toots as one of those cats who played so beautifully for us and will not be forgotten.

When the news first broke, it was difficult to gain access to DBKL's website.

Now that it is accessible, no point trying to beat about the bush. The only Dato Seri at the top management of DBKL, other than the Datok Bandar himself, is Executive Director (Project Management), Dato Seri Syed Afendy Ali bin Syed Abid Ali.

In that position, he has access to developers and is in the position to make life difficult for them. The allegation he owned 31 condos is rather far fetched. It needs proof and the allegation has to undergo due process in court. Should it be true, it is indication of how greedy and blatant the corrupts are these days.

So FT Minister Dato Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor was right to acted fast and suspend him. Syed Afendy was released from remand last Friday. Otherwise, he could come to work this morning and to put it in a cryptic way, "do the necessary". The corrupts are willing to do anything.

Today, the Managing Director of a GLC Bank is due to be released. Did we hear of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) or in the case of non-commercial Banks, any relevant Ministries with duplicating authorities made the same announcement as Ku Nan?

None ...

Guess let's not beat about the bush too.

There are too few GLC Banks around. After texting few bankers, including CEOs, most of the GLC Bank CEOs are around at the end of the week and over the weekend. The ones not around have matters to attend to abroad.

One banker located along Jalan Sultan Ismail told outright it is Bank Rakyat. It only means the alleged MD is Dato' Mustafha Haji Abdul Razak.

If there is to be any crap like this, it will be the non-commercial bank with cross jurisdiction like Bank Rakyat.

It makes sense since Bank Rakyat have been embroiled in many controversies. The bank has always been involved in controversies since the day Muhammad Ali came to town to box at Stadium Merdeka. It has not subside yet.

Latest episode involved the removal of it's former Chairman, Tan Sri Sabaruddin Chik by Dato Hasan Malek and concequently, his expose of Deepak. Heard there is more than just Deepak and his name throwing. Anyway so much for altruism ...

Saturday Utusan Malaysia here reported a Tan Sri leading the Bank "dipercayai terlibat dalam kes salah guna kuasa dan penyelewengan projek penerbitan buku". This is interesting because it could mean there is more than just the text book misappropriation but other power abuse cases.

There is only one Tan Sri on the Board of Directors of Bank Rakyat and that is Jeneral Tan Sri Dato' Sri Abdul Aziz Haji Zainal (B). Does it mean there could be alleged power abuses like giving big loans expected to be NPL to friends but still endorsed by the BOD?

Just asking ....

Nevertheless, it is puzzling that BNM did not issue any statement. They are supposed to be the principal regulator and supervisor of the financial system and Bank Rakyat falls under DFIs.

Should they not be stepping in and now that a Tan Sri in the Bank has been "dikenalpasti" and "dipercayai", many in Bank Rakyat could "do the necessary". If BNM is still sleeping on the job despite having a new Governor that is supposed to be younger and by right, not fall asleep in office, this is a dereliction of duties.

Come Monday, the Managing Director or whoever is the Tan Sri leading the Bank could "do the necessary" like paper shredding.

It was heard that in the last few hours before the raid and after news Jalil Ibrahim was found dead, the last top management around at BMF Hong Kong office was literally doing exactly that in those hey days.

Someone inside Bank Rakyat could move or transfer out officers and staff. Immediately, they could send some abroad for long long long courses.

Suddenly, without any winds blowing, there is a major organisational restructuring conjured and executed immediately. Such exercise would initially involved consultation and gathering of feedback from the lower level of the organisation. Lower staff would have got wind of such intention and everyone should be nervous as to who will get the boot and what the compensation will be like.

Major decisions such as that will have to undergo proper due process. It is a major exercise and it cannot be done at the spurt of the moment. But if the MD and Tan Sri leading the Bank are involved, such a remote possibility could be realised and be a reality.

For instance, they could be planning a sudden incentive in some form of "gratituity" for the management, officers and staff to get their cooperation to shut their mouth.

An announcement could be made to tell all the staff that they would be retrenched and rehired into a newly established organisation. The excuse could be to cut off the past and start afresh with a new book and business model. The past problems will be left behind in the old Bank and being addressed one by one.

The prospect of being instant millionaires would shut them up and be willing accomplice.

It is also a remote possibility but given time, it is not a bad plan to pre-empt the worms from the many bad loans that would eventually come out in the open. If it is known later, can always blame on past Chairman and management. Convenient to blame politicians.

It would not be a surprise that the MD was already or in the midst of putting it in motion last Friday when he was arrested and remanded by MACC. Over the weekend, the Tan Sri "dipercayai terlibat dalam kes salah guna kuasa dan penyelewengan projek penerbitan buku" could be pushing all these through.

If the BOD of Bank Rakyat are capable of "alleged power abuses like giving big loans expected to be NPL to friends but still endorsed", what is to stop them? The corrupts are greedy and blatant these days.

It sounds remote, bizarre and far fetch. A milder, selective and more strategic and effective plan of actions could be done.

BNM is under pressure for allegation that it had sabotaged 1MDB by telling Banks to pull the loans. Before Malaysia Today exposed it, this blog had first wrote about it here. Former Governor's name is bandied about in the public sphere but Dato Nor Shamsiah could remain quiet.

So it would be good PR for new management of BNM to say something and act swiftly to stop any attempts to cover-up or harass suspected whistleblowers or bribe to shut mouths.

Breaking the glass ceiling: Lesson for Malaysian politics

After Turkey military coup, Malaysia's turn?

After Turkey military coup, Malaysia's turn? (Part 2)

BR1M for Britain

Public perception: Gullible or "cognitive miser"?

Erdogan: Discussion on leadership and loyalty in Islam

Lending The Donald a hand

Passport fiasco: Who to blame?

Hillary Brexit-ing: Will it be the end of TPPA?

Government Official robbed off his RM280,000 Rolex

BNM policy still puzzling

Bersatu versus United ....

Security concern on passport production

Maybe it is about Syed Hamid

Jho Loh and Riza to appear in court

How will public react if Siti Nurhaliza's husband is held by MACC?

A lead to the answer of a puzzle

MACC: "Paper project" and soldiering on

Toots Thielemans .... died at 94

Why no statement from Bank Negara on Bank Rakyat investigation?