In the world of the Parliament,
and in the business of amendments,
they can buy time,
with a measly dime.
Mr. Cohen: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If that point of order was an allusion to me, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I was here for the opening speeches, and for some of the speeches that followed.
May the fourth is an appropriate date for a defence debate. My researcher, who is a bit of a wit, said that it should be called national star wars day. He was talking about the film “Star Wars” rather than President Reagan’s defence fantasy, and he added, “May the fourth be with you.” That is a very bad joke; he deserves the sack for making it, but he is a good researcher. [Hansard Debates for 4 May 1994. UK House of Commons. May 4 1994]
Finally, on the surface at least, sensible new policies:
People who waste more will have to pay more and every household will have to start separating recyclable items from other waste.
These are two of the implications of the Solid Waste Management and Public Clean-Up Bill, which the Housing and Local Government Ministry expects to table in parliament in two weeks. [Start sorting out and recycling your waste. NST. June 17 2007]
To be honest, I have not read the bills. The website of the Parliament is not so helpful and its search function is not working at all. Therefore, I am quite unclear what the bills are specifically seeking for other than the establishment of a government-owned centralized waste management entity. It is hard to form some sort of opinion without proper information.
I am unsure how the service providers are going to enforce that pay-as-you-go system. Under that model, the providers would need to identify which trash belongs to whom. It is easy imagine that waste owners would try to dump their waste at public space and then disown the trash to escape the need to pay for trash collection altogether. The property rights of the waste must be properly enforced to ensure the success of the model.
Another matter concerns recycling. The bill wants to make recycling mandatory but I prefer to provide consumers with incentive to recycling rather than coercing them. A good system would reward those that separate their trash by charging them less. In other word, offer them discount and this discount should include the cost of waste separation.
Those that failed to do the same should pay a premium. This premium would include the cost of separating the trash and some sort of penalty.
I wonder though if a waste management service provider has the economies of scale and the technology to separate trash at least as good as that being done by the consumers. If it does, perhaps it makes sense to do the separation on the other side of the equation rather than on the consumer side.
Apart from the payment schedule and recycling, another issue is this:
Along with the bills, the interim agreements between concessionaires of solid waste management facilities, which were arranged under the national privatisation of solid waste management programme, would be turned into concession agreements.
However, once this was done, the concessionaires would be subjected to strict key performance index and have to meet standards set by the government. [Better solid waste services once bills passed. NST. June 13 2007]
I am surprised that these waste management service providers are operating without any proper contract!
The introduction of contractual relationships would indeed improve the situation for all of us because with contracts, the service rendered by these management firms could be used to assure fund providers of repayment for any borrowing made by the firms to strengthen their business.
I am unsure why I have not posted this photo at this blog. Anyway, presenting to you, probably, the most famous photo of the Malaysian Houses of Parliament on the web, courtesy of Wikipedia, by me:
What?
You do not trust me? The claim is true! Try Googling it! Hahahahahahaha…!
I thought yesterday was scary when Shanghai’s benchmark fell about 9%. Yet, I thought it was a mere blip, some sort of a random walk that usually occurs for no good reason. The Dow Jones followed suit later but I thought it was a reaction to the Chinese performance. As of noon, today, the KL Composite Index has fallen nearly 6%. As a whole, it is not pretty for the region either. This might be the start of a vicious cycle and I am beginning to change my mind about the random walk.
I would like to see data on consumer spending to find out what is really happening though. If we truly are in trouble, consumer spending should start falling. It is only unfortunate that there is a lag in reporting.
Meanwhile, talks of recession are yet again running amok:
Still, traders’ dwindling confidence was knocked down further by data showing that the economy may be decelerating more than anticipated. A Commerce Department report that orders for durable goods in January dropped by the largest amount in three months exacerbated jitters about the direction of the U.S. economy, just a day after former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the United States may be headed for a recession. [Stocks Have Worst Day Since 9/11 Attacks, AP via Yahoo!, Feb 27 2007]
Alarms have been sounded earlier. That is why I am somewhat skeptical of the feel good atmosphere the Barisan Nasional-led government is trying to paint currently. The economy was relatively good last year — I am willing to accept that much — but between the future and the past, we should concern ourselves with the former, first and foremost.
With a recession expected to hit the US, and — by virtue that the country is Malaysia’s largest trading partner and that Malaysia is hugely dependent on trade — Malaysia, strategically, I feel it is best for the BN-led government to dissolve the Parliament soon. Therefore, I am agreeing with the executive director of MIER, Ariff Abdul Kareem’s opinion.
The later the general election is held, the worse the economy would perform and the worse BN would perform in the election.
Nevertheless, of course, that does not prevent us from savoring the expected Bank Negara’s announcement on last year’s GDP.