Category: Society

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[2576] Life and commerce in Siem Reap, Cambodia

I have always known about the atrocity of the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia but before I traveled to Cambodia, that knowledge was superficial. I only began to learn more about the conflict when I found myself in Cambodia for two weeks recently. Being there almost made the knowledge into an emotional experience for me.

To fully understand the history, I think one has to read up Cambodian history since its late French colonial days. That is so because each event led to another and finally in 1975, the Khmer Rouge came to power. It was a reaction to yet another reaction but that fact does not justify what the Khmer Rouge did.

Apart from its political desire that also contributed to the massacre of the Cambodian people and those in the Khmer Rouge themselves later, its communist, understanding, forcefully changed the economy and the demography of Cambodia for the worse. It was disastrous, as it was disastrous with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

The regime was not ashamed to centrally planned the economy, forcing all to work in the countryside as slaves and victims of communism. Without exaggeration in the case of Cambodia, communism kills. The cities were deserted so that the communists could realize a stupid ideal of “peasant economy”. Doctors, engineers and professionals were all forced to till the land in the countryside. The cities were left to those in power, and those whom were being tortured to satisfy the paranoia of the Khmer Rouge and ultimately, the circle of Pol Pot. The cities became ghost towns.

The Khmer Rouge regime fell in 1979. By that time I visited the country in 2012, what was a rich country has only begun to make its way in this world again.

Cambodia was a rich country. Its temple ruins are evident enough. Phnom Penh the capital has traces of its pre-Khmer Rouge glory.

Some of the Cambodians I talked to rued how Cambodia was richer than Vietnam before the Khmer Rouge period. Now, Vietman is ahead in so many ways. My traveling partner whom has been in Vietnam several times for an extended period, confirmed this. There are more buildings and vehicles in Vietnam than there are in Cambodia.

While that is so, traces of communism are being overwhelmed by its better nemesis.

In Siem Reap up north where most the temples of Angkor are, commerce, the voluntary exchange of goods and services by individuals, is everywhere.

Some rights reserved. Creative Commons 3.0. By Attribution. By Hafiz Noor Shams

Under communism of the Khmer Rouge, that was illegal. Under communism, there was no life.

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Politics & government Society

[2574] Declining crime rate may not be enough

The statistics show that total crime in general has been declining since 2009, according to PEMANDU. Yet many members of the public distrust the statistics and insist that they do not feel what the statistics suggest. Others in the wild, wild world of cyberspace, where discussions can be very unrefined, openly call those in authority outright liars, which is not the first time that has happened. Suffice to say those in the government are frustrated at incredulity exhibited by many members of the public towards the official narrative of declining crime.

Idris Jala, the head of PEMANDU, cited an article entitled ”Cockeyed optimists” in The Economist some time ago. The message of the article, among others, is that perception lags behind actual crime statistics. The article referred to the United Kingdom to support its claim. In short, Idris Jala was defending the statistics amid widespread disbelief. He tried to rationalize the seemingly contradictory signals inferred from the reported crime statistics and public perception of the level of crime within the society, and he hoped others believed it. If he had not hoped, he would not have shared his rationalization in the first place.

Eugene Tan, a PEMANDU director, was clearer in delivering the same message. ”Changes in perception do not immediately follow changes on the ground. And even when people fear crime less and perception changes, the change is slower than the actual reduction of cases,” he reportedly said.

Crime may be falling. Or at least the reported official crime statistics are declining. And it may be true that perception lags behind crime rate.

Or it may be that falling crime rate itself is not the real concern. Maybe, the actual issue is that the public tolerates only so much crime.

It can be that is a maximum level of crime that the public can endure while maintaining their composure. If total crime is above the level in general, then the public will complain loudly about the performance of the authority in tackling crime. If total crime is below that level, then maybe it will ease the public.

If it is indeed true that there is a ceiling that the public tolerates, then the question is not whether the total crime has been falling. The whole new hypothesis makes the point on declining crime statistics somewhat redundant. The trend itself becomes of little comfort to the public and is of little value in improving public sentiment with respect to crime and overall safety of self, their loved ones and property.

Instead of focusing on whether the crime rate has fallen — conditional on the truth value of the assumption of comfort ceiling — the relevant concern now takes a slightly different form. The question now is whether total crime has fallen low enough?

Taking the continuing public dissatisfaction within this new context, then the answer seems to be no. It appears that there is still some way to go before the public is satisfied with the level of crime within our society.

So, the alternative way to convince that public with issues regarding general crime is to identify the ceiling, compare the total crime to the ceiling and work towards pushing total crime below that.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malaysian Insider on August 3 2012.

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Economics Society

[2573] A pretty sizable legal migration into Malaysia between 2000 and 2010

I was reading, or rather re-reading, the Economic Transformation Program and I was a bit obsessed with its projection of 3.3 million total new jobs between whenever the program was supposed to begin up to year 2020. The figure sounds a bit too optimistic that I do not think there will enough workers to take up the jobs, especially  the geometric average growth between 2000 and 2010 was just below 2.0% per year and when population growth for 2010 was at the measly 1.5% per year. The population growth rate is slowing down.

So, I did a bit of investigation and was planning to do some back-of-the-envelope modeling until a different but related matter attracted my attention. It is the population profile for Malaysia.

The chart was pulled directly from the Department of Statistics because I was too lazy to pull out the numbers from a database available to me at work. It was already 5PM at the time I started writing this and I did not want to stay in the office for too long today, especially when I had to pack my belongings to catch a plane early the day after tomorrow.

Anyway, what interested me here was the population increase. Specifically, population increase according to cohorts.

The chart shows how important (legal) immigration is to Malaysian population growth.

How do you spot immigration from the graph?

Well, under an autarkic case where there is no immigration, it is impossible for a cohort in a particular year to increase in size in later years.

Yet, if you look at the chart, all cohorts between 0 and 34 actually increased in size in the 10 years that passed between the two population surveys (2000 and 2010). To be clear, the 0-34 cohorts in 2000 should be compared with those aged from 10 to 44 in 2010.

There are two explanations that I can think of. One, which is less likely or probably insignificant, error in one of the surveys, or both. Two, which is likelier, is immigration.

That was a pretty sizable legal immigration between 2000 and 2010. Easily more than 1 million legal immigrants in 10 years.

Most of the immigrants were in their prime years. In other words, they were young, productive and probably contributed to economic growth.

But there is one peculiarity. Look at the 65-69 cohort in 2000. In 2010, the above 75-year-old cohort increased. Odd is it not? Or maybe Malaysian longevity is getting really good.

Other cohorts exhibited a decreasing trend.

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Economics Society

[2543] Safety bought through ransom is a cost to society

Amid the political wrangling on Bersih and its aftermath, a son of two expatriates living in Kuala Lumpur was kidnapped. The kidnapping of Nayati became a minor sensation. Twitter was abuzzed with it. Posters were put up across the city and flyers handed out. Just outside of my office in Damansara Heights, just by the busy road, somebody hang a large poster of Nayati, appealing for information and help. Judging by the impressive and expensive effort, the parents are well-off.

He was found later outside of the city in Rawang and it was reported that the parents paid the kidnappers some unknown ransom.

I am glad Nayati was found and I am glad he is safe.

Nevertheless, it must be highlighted that Nayati is one person. The more important fact here is that we live in a society. The handling of the case gives signal to the society. That signal will inform future decision of both victims and criminals.

The “ransom solution” creates an expectation on the side of the criminals that crime pays. That creates adverse incentive.

When the incentive is big enough over the cost of crime (either through the increase of actual payoff or the higher probability of payoff), we can expect greater occurrence of kidnapping in the future. The ransom solution will create a systemic problem and it will make the society less safe.

For Nayati’s parents, the police may have helped them. Nayati’s father has thanked the police. In fact, if I were the father, I would thank the police for their aid despite paying off the kidnappers with my own money. In tough times, any help will be appreciated. And I do not blame the parents for paying off the ransom. No money worth more than the life of your loved ones.

But, from societal point of view, such emotional attachment should be stripped in favor of pure rational economic analysis.

When it is stripped, then the incentive structure will tell us that each ransom solution represents a failure of the societal institutions.

Any safety bought through ransom is a cost to the society as a whole. Call it negative externality; each time you pay, you may make somebody else worse off.

So, from societal perspective, the Nayati case is a failure. It will continue to be a failure until the kidnappers are caught and sufficiently punished to tell everybody that crime does not pay.

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Photography Politics & government Society

[2541] He wants a clean election