Categories
Society

[1102] Of a xenophobic bill

Thanks to Chinese New Year, a typical weekend became a four-day holiday for many in Malaysia. According to several sources including TV3, foreign laborers flooded Kuala Lumpur for recreational purposes on Sunday. In the news reports, locals expressed discomfort of seeing foreign laborers walking around so freely in large number. I thought it was normal for the locals to feel some discomfort and since I have blogged about such xenophobia earlier, I decided to let it go. When I saw a post by The Malaysian which quotes the International Herald Tribune however, I changed my mind. In the IHT:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Foreign laborers in Malaysia’s largest city denounced Monday proposed legislation that would restrict them to their work sites unless they receive special permission to leave.

Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said he intends to propose a bill next month that could see nearly 2 million foreign workers in the Southeast Asian nation confined to their living quarters, the Star newspaper Web site reported Sunday.

The bill is xenophobic and must not pass. We are talking about humans here, not dogs.

If the bill goes through, then Malaysia must be prepared for rocky relationships with several countries which will inevitably include our neighbor, Indonesia.

Further in the report:

Police Chief Musa Hassan said foreign laborers may be restricted to their living quarters and their “activities monitored” as part of efforts to curb crime. Musa said 5,000 crimes were committed by foreigners last year from a total of about 230,000.

And:

“It is a way to prevent those employees from committing crimes,” he said adding 2% of the crimes committed in the country are by foreign workers.

Based on the statistics, if we are really concerned about crime rate, we should restrict the locals instead. But no, there are those that are encouraging the Mat Rempits to disregard the law in the name of fighting crime:

BALING: Putera Umno will reward Mat Rempit here with motorcycles for helping police detain snatch thieves.

Its chief Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim said the incentive was one way of curbing snatch thefts in the Baling district and to encourage the illegal racers to be police informants.

However, he added, before the Mat Rempit could take home the motorcycle, they would have to catch at least 30 snatch thieves and be rewarded RM50 per head.

A great policy from a person whom “graduated” from the “prestigious” “Preston University“. For more on Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, please read an article by Joceline Tan.

In the end, are we as a society being honest here?

Categories
Kitchen sink

[1101] Of Metroblogging KL: Update

It has been three weeks since that post on Metblog KL. So, this is an update.

There are more or less six people on board now. They are:

  1. me
  2. Walski69 of My Asylum
  3. Yeen Fern
  4. Nat of jelas.info (he is still unsure but hell, he is in!)
  5. Nue of Chocowhore
  6. plonk of plonkwonk

C’mon. What are you waiting for? Hop on.

And oh yeah, Gong Xi Fa Cai before somebody bans us all from wishing that too.

Categories
Sports

[1100] Of the shittiest defense ever

Watch:

Fair use. Unknown origin.

In that game, Ajax drew with Excelsior. It was supposed to be an easy game, despite all the injuries.

PSV however won and because of that, Ajax is now 5 points behind PSV. The only consolation is that AZ drew too and therefore, is still a point behind Ajax.

Ajax will play AZ next week.

Categories
Economics

[1099] Of food sovereignty and comparative advantage

As a graduate of economics, I unreasonably assume that everybody knows basic economic ideas like supply and demand and comparative advantage. Perhaps, it is time for me to throw away that assumption and assume the opposite. Explanation on comparative advantage is crucial in effort to discredit the idea of food sovereignty; food sovereignty is merely another name for protectionism.

The idea of food sovereignty is well-stated in the Ninth Malaysia Plan. See Chapter 3 of the Plan if you prefer not to take my words for it. Given that the current administration is stressing on agriculture, perhaps it is not too astounding to see food sovereignty being part of the administration’s economic game plan.

The idea of food sovereignty basically states that a nation should be able to produce enough food for its population and not dependent on others. It should be self-sufficient in food production.

In order to do that, resources would need to be allocated in a way that prioritizes the food production sector. Such prioritization if done as rigidly as possible would deprive other sectors of resources. And indeed, the idea of food sovereignty might contradict the concept of comparative advantage and ignore the possibility of trade.

Comparative advantage is a basic economic principle first proposed by David Ricardo approximately two centuries ago. It states that an entity, be it a whole economy or a person, should concentrate on what it does best. In order word, the entity should specialize in what it could produce most efficiently. From there on, trade away in order to obtain other goods that the entity does not produce. Whenever trade is impossible, the idea does not apply for the obvious reason. There is more to gain from trade than autarky, nonetheless.

When it comes down to the issue of food sovereignty, the question that needs to be answered is this: does Malaysia have a comparative advantage in food production?

Even if Malaysia has comparative advantage in food production — which I think it does to some extent due to favorable climate — the concept of food sovereignty is not as helpful as comparative advantage in creating a more prosperous society.

Categories
Politics & government

[1098] Mengenai melatah tentang pembubaran Parlimen

Jika semalam Utusan Malaysia, meminjam frasa The Sensintrovert, cuba menyemarakkan nafsu politikus-politikus di seluruh negara, Timbalan Perdana Menteri Najib Razak melalui Utusan dan juga saluran-saluran Media Prima memadamkan keghairahan tersebut. Bak kata Mat Salleh, TPM “poured cold water” ke atas perkara yang secara langsung menyentuh kemungkinan pilihanraya di dalam tahun 2007.

Di muka hadapan Mingguan Malaysia hari ini:

Scanned by Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Copyrights by Utusan Malaysia. Fair use.

Lebih lanjut lagi:

KUALA LUMPUR 17 Feb. — Banyak pihak menganggap masih terlalu awal untuk kerajaan membubarkan Parlimen bagi memberi laluan kepada pilihan raya umum walaupun petunjuk ekonomi pada masa ini berada pada kedudukan memberangsangkan.

Mereka berpendapat kerajaan tidak perlu tergesa-gesa kerana negara baru sahaja selesai mengadakan pilihan raya umum pada tahun 2004 dan mandat itu hanya berakhir pada April 2009.

Adalah rugi bagi kerajaan membubarkan Parlimen dalam tempoh singkat selepas hanya separuh penggal memegang amanah rakyat selain menurut mereka, Barisan Nasional (BN) tidak berada dalam keadaan terdesak untuk mengadakan pilihan raya.

Saya berpendapat bahawa Utusan lebih merupakan suara orang-orang Melayu daripada orang-orang UMNO. Mungkin ramai akan menyangkal pendapat itu tetapi kegagalan pengambungan di antara Utusan dan New Straits Times akibat penentangan hebat orang-orang Utusan dan ahli-ahli politik Melayu (yang juga ahli-ahli UMNO) terhadap kehendak Perdana Menteri menyakinkan saya tentang kedudukan Utusan.

Oleh itu, mengambil kira kedua-dua laporan mengenai pilihanraya yang cuba membawa maksud yang berbeza, mungkin sedang berlaku satu perdebatan hebat di dalam UMNO tentang pilihanraya. Atau, mungkin sekali, orang-orang Melayu sudah mula bosan dengan UMNO.

Atau mungkin Utusan hanya mengulangi apa yang Reuters telah sampaikan.

Walau bagaimanapun, saya teringat slogan pasukan yang berkempen untuk William Jefferson Clinton untuk pilihanraya Amerika Syarikat 1992. Slogan itu berbunyi, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Clinton kemudiannya dipilih oleh rakyat Amerika untuk menjadi Presiden yang ke-42 negara tersebut.

Tiada siapa patut lupa akan kata-kata itu.