Posted in Economics, Politics & government on May 1st, 2013 No Comments »
I am curious at some of the projected fiscal deficit figures which have come out from the internet. A number of them are fanciful. One that I have read has the deficit under Pakatan Rakyat manifesto rising to close to 12% of nominal GDP while BN would be as low as 4%. The 4% figure [...]
Posted in Economics on September 26th, 2012 1 Comment »
I have been doing some preparatory work for a report on the 2013 federal government budget. The budget will be tabled at the Parliament this Friday. In the course of doing so, I have come to wonder if the comparison of budget deficit (as typically understood) across governments of the world is really fair. Specifically, [...]
Posted in Economics, Personal, Politics & government on July 27th, 2012 2 Comments »
I handle my finances conservatively. I spend very little for someone my age and my profile. In fact, I impose a sort of limit on my spending. I am conscious of it and get mildly nervous if my total spending grows too fast even when I can more than afford it. I probably do buy [...]
Posted in Economics on June 20th, 2012 No Comments »
Kapil Sethi has a really odd piece yesterday in The Malaysian Insider yesterday. It started pretty alright by discussing crime but the strangeness began when he tried touch the realm of economics: At a deeper level though, this desperation points to a changing politico-economic environment that is forcing such radical shifts in behaviour. When there is [...]
Posted in Economics on November 23rd, 2011 No Comments »
The failure of the supercommittee to agree on the distribution of US budget cut is not much of a news. It has been expected. Leaks of how difficult it was to reach a common ground made it way to news reports . More importantly, the impact of the failure is not too big because the fail-safe [...]
Posted in Economics on October 24th, 2011 2 Comments »
As sovereign insolvency hogs headlines around the world, so heightens the popularity of deficit-reduction agenda. No more only wonks make the noise. Some men in the streets are echoing the slogan of economic conservatism as well, filling the lonely space sitting not quite centered in the Malaysian political spectrum. One ratio has been brandied around [...]
Posted in Economics, Politics & government on October 11th, 2011 8 Comments »
If one throws a dart randomly at those pieces of paper pinned on the wall, there is a good chance the dart will land on a handout provision. Those papers are the 2012 Budget. The Budget, as tabled by the Najib administration, is an election budget. Civil servants, teachers, the police force, the armed forces, pensioners [...]
Posted in Economics on October 7th, 2011 No Comments »
The 2012 budget is an election budget. From civil servants to police officers to students to teachers to the armed forces, the whole public sector workers, even pensioners, will get their own share of handouts next year if this budget is passed, which it will. With all the handouts, it got me thinking. We could [...]
Posted in Economics on May 11th, 2010 2 Comments »
The story in Greece is a result of intertwining plots. One major plot concerns economic populism. It is a reminder that populist measures tend to ignore scarcity. It highlights that the policy of spend, spend and spend and then hoping someone else will take care of it, is risky. With a brick wall up ahead, [...]
Posted in Economics, Politics & government on June 17th, 2009 No Comments »
The consistent fiscal deficit the federal government currently experiences is an issue far removed from everyday life. For many, it is an abstraction without concrete consequences. Hence, it is highly unlikely that the issue will be able to capture public attention and directly become a determinant in any election. This gives the federal government too [...]
The name is Hafiz Noor Shams.
For more about me, please go here.