Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

For more about me, please read this.

Categories
Conflict & disaster Politics & government

[1064] Of secret Israeli-Syrian peace treaty?

Peace at last?

In the NYT today:

ISRAEL’S newspapers are rife with reports of a peace agreement secretly forged between Israeli and Syrian negotiators. Though both the Syrian and Israeli governments have denied any involvement in the talks, past experience shows that such disavowals are often the first indication of truth behind the rumors.

Certainly, there is nothing new about the details of the purported plan, which involves a staged Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, occupied since 1967, and the full normalization of relations between Damascus and Jerusalem. Nor is there a precedent in the willingness of Israeli and Arab leaders to enter into direct discussions without the participation or knowledge of the United States.

Though an editorial piece, I cannot help but notice that the author mentions Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv.

Categories
Economics Humor

[1063] Of who says economics is a dry and boring subject?

Have you ever wondered how Malaysian economic growth correlates with Malaysian carbon emission? Or economic performance against income per capita? Or internet proliferation against telephone proliferation?

Head over to The Gapminder World; another great tool by Google. Kudos to Prof. Mankiw for the discovery!

Just a friendly reminder — be mindful of the golden rule that is correlation is not causation.

Categories
ASEAN Sports

[1062] Of Tigers and Lions

The ASEAN Championship match between Malaysia and Singapore was a match that I eagerly anticipated. Despite that, I only managed to catch the second half. Yesterday had been a busy day; one Board of Directors meeting and then my CEO’s birthday on the same day. Busy but fun. Well, not quite busy but whatever. I caught the first half review nevertheless. The second half was entertaining but the result — one all — is tremendously disappointing.

Pardon me for being a pessimist or an unpatriotic bastard but I did not place too much hope on the national team; the team’s past performance is not convincing. Upon watching the half time review though, I was surprised to find out that Malaysia was dominating the game. I am unsure if it was the case of Malaysia performing well or Singapore waking up with a fever but Malaysia was dominating nonetheless.

The scoreline at halftime was zero all.

The second half time proved explosive.

Malaysia continued to dominated and the deadlock was finally broken when a Malaysian player by the name of Hardi scored. It was a fantastic, beautiful, surprising, superb goal. The curve of the ball path and the distance the ball travelled make the goal all the more astounding. It is not everyday I could witness a goal like that – not from the Malaysian team. With that goal, Malaysia took the lead. A glorious lead befitting a glorious goal.

I was watching the game quietly right up until the goal. The goal animated me. I was clapping, shouting and my blood was circulating greatly that I thought I was having a heart attack!

It was a fantastic feeling that I do not think I remember having since the Michigan-Michigan State match at the Big House. It was ecstasy. What was better, Malaysia continued to harass the Singaporean that it seems that it was Malaysia up against Brunei or some other lesser regional team.

The way the game was going, a Malay would say, “harapan menggunung tinggi melangit.” Well, I am unsure what a Malay would say really but the phrase seems catchy.

With surging expectation going beyond rationality, Singaporean equalizer struck a mighty blow. I do not think the goal should have gone in. After all the spectacle, the goal went in too easy. But I am speaking as a couch potato. And I think Shebby spoke too much.

Malaysia continued attacking nevertheless. It was amazing how the players kept on fight. They realized that the game had not ended yet and certainly were not ready to throw in the towel yet. Why should they?

They were highly spirited. I had not seen that in the national team for a very long time. It was a contagious feeling and I was shouting at the top of my lungs.

As anger and frustration was mounting, I tried to pick fault with all the Singaporean players. Especially the Singaporean player Precious – an African giant – audaciously pushed a Malaysia player for the ball. He was given a yellow card but the referee should have given that guy a red. And, the red card for the Singaporean captain was freaking marvelous.

And then I thought, damn, how many imported players does the Singaporean team have? Two, Three? Five!

Whatever it might be, the game was great. I wish the Tigers all the best. Let us beat the Lions in their own den!

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[1061] Of global warming in the 2007 State of the Union

After years of denial and under pressure from growing green presence in the Congress, the Bush administration is expected to finally give global warming the attention it deserves:

George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior Downing Street officials.

Somehow however, I feel Bush is only happy to touch on global warming instead of discussing further on Iraq. Iraq has been such a failure that it has become a good policy to divert public attention away from Iraq.

Nevertheless, finally, perhaps this is the way forward. This u-turn by the Bush administration might set the momentum we all need to formulate an globally inclusive post-Kyoto plan to combat global warming. Bush’s proposal might be insufficient but a change is still a change.

Earlier this week, ExxonMobil of whom had developed a reputation as the staunch denier of global warming, abandoned its denial stance and joins the fight against global warming. Also, this week, major companies called for a carbon trading system, putting President Bush under pressure just hours before his address:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Chief executives from such major corporations as General Electric and DuPont teamed up with environmental organizations Monday, urging U.S. lawmakers Monday to pass sweeping legislation that would ultimately cut greenhouse gas emissions.

This will be an exciting address for us, the greens. The snowball is now an avalanche.

Categories
Economics

[1060] Of tax reduction, not subsidy increase please!

Crude oil prices have been falling lately and certain quarters are calling for the reduction of fuel prices in Malaysia. That call includes implicit demand for increase in subsidy. Anwar Ibrahim is one of them.

I oppose any subsidy increase that distorts the market. In fact, to combat externalities caused by fossil fuel consumption, I advocate the imposition of tax to internalize the externalities. Unfortunately, taxation is politically unpalatable. As an alternative to subsidy increase or taxation, I propose a policy better than subsidy increase as well as pragmatic at the same time; a third way — a proportionate decrease in taxes.

That means any saving made by the government through the reduction of subsidy as well as the fall in crude oil prices should be fully used to fund tax cut across the board.

The term saving here needs to be defined. Saving means the amount would need to be paid by the government for subsidy if crude oil prices had not fallen from the price level when the latest subsidy regime was announced.

Why is this policy better than the call to increase subsidy?

This policy is less distortionary. Not only it does not increase distortion caused by subsidy, it also reduces distortion caused by taxation through tax reduction. Apart from economic consideration, tax reduction might have favorable impact comparable to the political effect of subsidy increase effect — it would please the mob, for better or for worse.