“…Treasuries have become a form of insurance against their own downgrade.” [Chris Reese. Bonds climb with safety buying as stocks dip. Reuters. July 26 2011]
Categories
The rapid and successful economic development of China so far has been presented as the superiority of central planning over the approach taken, for example, by India. It is the Beijing development model as some would say. Authoritarian top-down approach gets things done, unlike the messy democratic means from the bottom up. All those criticisms weigh things down needlessly.
The recent high-speed train disaster that killed nearly 40 persons[1] should give advocates of the authoritarian approach a considerable pause the next time they try to sell the Beijing model over democratic ones. Reports are coming out that these infrastructure projects were rushed for the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party.[2] Results do not look good for the Chinese government.
The Beijing way of doing things has become controversial, especially after the accident.
How much of infrastructure projects all around China suffer from abuse of power or corruption in general? Was the accident a symptom of a rotten system?
Between authoritarian and democratic states, the former lacks real mechanism to make the state accountable. It will be hard to answer the questions even in democratic states, much less in ones like China’s.
Typical of authoritarian governments, the Chinese government is trying to muzzle investigations into the incident.[3] This is amid angry allegations of corruption with respect to these projects and specifically, the high-speed train system. That is an example how there is little accountability in China. Any reprimand is for public show only. Such reprimands have proven to be inconsequential. In Malaysian parlance, small fish.
Even before the train disaster, the system was already suffering from service interruptions, barely weeks after its official opening. Something must be wrong when so many glitches happened so frequently so soon.
Something is rotten in the state of China. That rottenness is the cost of the authoritarian model. There is a cost to absence of check and balance, of accountability, of freedom. It is a shame somebody has to die to learn that.
While India suffered from embarrassing criticisms before and during the last Commonwealth Games due to perhaps their incompetence in meeting deadlines, at least we knew the problems before it was too late. Remedies were taken. For China, there is a guessing game: which one is the facade and which one is real. As the train disaster showed, we found out about the rotten apples way too late.
[1] — BEIJING—The first high-speed train passed through the tracks where a deadly train collision occurred in eastern China, as authorities sought to soothe public concern over safety and the handling of the accident as well as jitters about the future of its prized high-speed rail system. [Norihiko Shirouzu. Beijing Seeks to Soothe Train Jitters. Wall Street Journal. July 26 2011]
[2] — China’s high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai has been beset by glitches in the two weeks since it opened to great fanfare on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party’s 90th anniversary celebration. [David Pierson. China’s high-speed rail glitches: Racing to make errors?. Los Angeles Times. July 16 2011]
[3] — BEIJING — China has banned local journalists from investigating the cause of a deadly high-speed train crash that has triggered public outrage and raised questions over safety, reports said Tuesday. [Allison Jackson. China seeks to muzzle reporting on train crash. AFP. July 26 2011]
I am a secularist. I strongly believe in the separation of the state and religion. At the very least, the state should not interfere in personal belief within libertarian constraint and religion should not influence the state to the extent that it transgresses individual liberty.
Although there are other concerns I have written throughout this blog of mine, my primary concern here contextualized within the latest development on the issue revolves around negative individual liberty.
Religion and other personal beliefs are private matters. As long as these beliefs do not contradict individual liberty, the state should get out of the bedroom so-to-speak. Recall the base function of the liberal state: the protection of individual negative liberty.
The separation between the state and religion prevents religion from hijacking the state, and the state from controlling any religion. At one fell swoop, the separation goes a long way in guaranteeing freedom of religion and other individual rights that might come into conflict with religious beliefs.
This is not just some academic concern. It is a real worry in Malaysia. Existing institutions apply highly corrosive effects on individual rights granted through individual liberty. There are religious police in Malaysia.
Within Malaysian context, the roles of Islam in the state are repulsive. Before I am being misconstrued, I am referring to the relevant religious institutions in Malaysia, not the religion itself.
There is a need to reduce the prominence of these Islamic institutions that exert unduly coercive influence on liberty. The state controls Islam and the Islam as in the form sanctioned by the state and through apparatus of the state exerts suffocating stranglehold on individuals who refuse to bow.
The latest news has it that Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia will lobby for the formation of a non-Muslim affairs ministry, again.[1] I wrote again because it has been raised since as early as 2007. This should be seen in parallel to the state of Islam in Malaysia.
Will non-Muslims be forced to fit the mould of certain religion they identify themselves with? Will the government try to interfere in how non-Muslims practice their religion?
Even if the answers are no, it will give the state a piece of the pie. The Church and its merry men, which themselves have not-so-impeccable reputation as far as individual liberty are concerned, will have to share that pie of tyranny.
For an illiberal government eager of telling individual what to believe in, perhaps the formation of that ministry is consistent.
Yet, an illiberal government is not the ideal government for me.
I oppose the formation of the ministry. The formation will give greater legitimacy to moral policing within Islam. It gives legitimacy to the division and compartmentalization of society to coerce free persons. We already have two laws in this land, one for one group and another one for another. One is free, and the other is not as far as libertarians are concerned. The establishment of non-Muslim affairs ministry will strengthen that illiberal dichotomy.
Religion should play less significant roles in the state. That ministry will only enhance the roles of religion, and at the same time, the scope of the state. There should be less government, not more. There is already a lot of room for tyranny in the state. Why should more space be made for tyranny?
A certain somebody a long time ago said the era of government knows best is over. Now is yet another chance to prove whether that statement was made in good faith or not. Prove it by not dictating private individual beliefs. Prove it by rejecting the religious lobbyists out right.
[1] — KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — The Roman Catholic Church here will lobby for a non-Islamic affairs ministry now that Malaysia has formalised ties with the Vatican, says Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam. [Debra Chong. Catholic Church plugs for non-Muslim affairs ministry. The Malaysian Insider. July 26 2011]
Categories
[2400] Good news for the hawks
An argument goes that rate hike will not address inflationary pressure in Malaysia.
It is not as effective against cost-push inflation as it is against demand-pull inflation. And right now, the economy is experiencing cost-push inflation. More importantly, the push is coming from abroad. It is practically exogenous, discounting the liberalization exercise (which itself originates from exogenous pressure applied on government finance).
Hike the rate and price increase will not slow down by much. Local demand is not big enough to slow down the advance of the prices powered mostly by the larger foreign demand.
So, there is little need to increase the rate.
If the mysterious author at Economics Malaysia is correct, then rate hike might be more effective than proponents of the cost-push narrative are willing to accept. The author believes that the economy is already running at its full capacity. He believes the unemployment rate basically is bottoming out and is unlikely to go down any further in a significant manner.[1]
I am will not go into the numbers but the logic is sound.
Because it is sounds, it suggests that demand-push inflation making its round, thus making the exogenous cost-push story line less weight in the determination of monetary policy.
[1] — I’d still take this as a signal that the economy is at full capacity, as we’re looking at near historical lows in the unemployment rate. While GDP growth likely softened in 2Q 2011, there’s been little impact on jobs so far — June’s numbers however may show a different story. [Hishamh. May 2011 Employment Report: Softly, Softly. Economics Malaysia. July 25 2011]
Categories
[2399] A-twittering around
Twitter is taking much of my blogging time away. That explains the dearth of posts here.
If you are in the appetite for an angrier, snappier and a snarkier me, follow me on Twitter.