- Study: M'sians blame political influence of rich on economic inequality
- six in 10 think their kids will be financially worse off
- Dissatisfied by economic inequality, majority M'sians calling for economic reform
- By Malay Mail
- Saturday, 11 Jan 2025
- Pew Research survey - 86% M'sians believe the rich influence economic inequality
- 62% thinking it affected the inequality “a great deal”
- study revealed 58% M'sians think their children will be financially worse off political influence of the elites caused economic inequality “a great deal”
- 70% M'sians said gap between rich and poor big problem
- total of 86% called for complete reform (38%) or major changes (48%)
- Gap between rich and poor: 70 per cent
- Discrimination based on race or ethnicity: 63 per cent
- Unequal rights for men and women: 48 per cent
- Discrimination based on religion: 57 per cent
Malaysians who blamed these issues for economic inequality here:
- Political influence of the rich: 86
- Problem with the education system: 78 per cent
- Some people working harder: 77 per cent
- Different opportunities at birth: 73 per cent
- Robots and computers taking over: 68 per cent
- Racial or ethnic discrimination: 72 per cent
My Comments :
This is not entirely correct. There is a very big difference between Malaysia and other countries like Japan, Australia or America. Here the economic disparity and the very wide gap between the super rich and everyone else is mainly because the super rich are thieves. Pencuri. They do not earn their money through honest work and from the open market. Instead they steal public funds or dana awam. They steal from the harta rakyat or duit rakyat.
In the United States the super rich include Bill Gates (maybe the first US Dollar TRILLIONAIRE), Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), Elon Musk, that Facebook boy. But they do not steal the people's money. Bill Gates' Microsoft is a gigantic software company. Their Windows Operating System operates the whole world. That is how Bill Gates became super rich - by developing and selling useful products to the consumer at a fair price. When Microsoft Windows was introduced in the 1980s Gates launched it for US$99.00. Today almost 45 years later Windows 11.0 sells for about US$139.00.
Jeff Bezos made online shopping a world class experience. Amazon sells mostly quality products at a very fair price. They deliver direct to your house in Malaysia. So far ALL the products I bought from Amazon are much, much cheaper than the price for the same items in Malaysia - including delivery charges. But usually they do not sell those items here or they are very difficult to find. But that is how Jeff Bezos became a multi-billionaire - by selling useful products to buyers worldwide.
Elon Musk has built up Space-X, Starlink, Pay-Pal, Tesla, Twitter and many other gigantic companies. He produces useful products and services and therefore he becomes super rich.
More important than creating jobs, these entrepreneur billionaires and trillionaires create opportunity for the practical application of science and technology in our everyday lives. This is much, much more important than creating jobs, Minimum Wages etc. Their handiwork advances the influence of technology in our everyday lives. This is extremely important.
For comparison, if you spend a million US Dollars to build a place of worship, that is not going to technologically advance the human race even for one centimeter. That money is just gone. That place of worship will most likely create hatreds among the people.
But lets come to our country. We also have the super rich in Malaysia. There are two kinds of super rich. The first type are those who are comparable to Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. I count the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong as one of them. Using his own money and his own sweat he carved that road up Genting Highlands. Then he built that hotel and casino on that mountain. Not much technology involved but Lim Goh Tong undertake a monumental challenge and an even greater amount of risk. It was a huge risk. And it became a roaring success. So he became rich. And today the entire region from the Karak Highway, Karak town, Bukit Tinggi, Bentong and that whole Genting Highlands has progressed tremendously all because of one man's superhuman effort.
My other favorite is Tan Sri Loh Boon Siew - of Honda Malaysia. He began as a bicycle repair shop, then he sold 2nd hand Honda motorbikes, then he assembled and sold Honda bikes and finally Honda cars. He sold a useful product. That is how he became super rich.
We thank Allah that there are still many millionaires and billionaires like these in Malaysia. Yes they become rich but they achieve wealth by creating useful products and services for the society at a competitive market price. Their output makes available the products and services that we need or want.
These millionaires and billionaires do not create problems for our country.
The problems are created by those b@st@rd millionaires and billionaires who steal from the public. Too often they steal directly from the public funds. Dana awam. The duit rakyat. Through insanely overpriced government contracting - made possible through greasing, pulling cables, connections, cronyism, political patronage and all that crap. Or simple, straightforward stealing. 1MDB, multi billion Ringgit navy ships that were not delivered, helicopters that were not delivered, or will be delivered, overpriced telecoms contracts, really stupid shuttle-van service contracts worth hundreds of millions. That is straightforward stealing.
Or they steal indirectly - through government granted monopolies, oligopolies, licenses, permits, quotas. Like that billionaire who not only got that horse race betting franchise but he was also given a monopoly over satellite TV. Of course he became super rich. Give me a gambling franchise and a petroleum export license or two plus maybe a rice monopoly and of course I too can become a multi-billionaire. Apa susah sangat? I would have most probably ventured to the US, Europe and other parts of Asia as well and made many more billions.
But back to the topic - this is stealing. This is NOT business. This is not buying low, adding some value to the product or service and then selling it at a higher price to the consumer for some profit.
All the government granted monopolies and oligopolies in this country fall into this category - stealing from the people. The people have no choice.
If they want to increase the tariff, what choice do the people have?
If the construction fellows want to impose a levy what choice do the people have? That money that is collected will probably go into someone's pocket or some politicians pocket.
If the foreign worker fellows impose a levy what choice do the people have? Bayar lah. RM20,000 for a Bangladeshi worker. About RM20,000 for an Indonesian maid.
These are the b@st@rds who are creating these wealth inequality in the country. They take more from the people - unethically, immorally and even illegally - and give much less in return.
And they become super rich from doing useless and stupid work like cleaning the toilet. The government's toilet cleaning contracts run into the billions of Ringgit. Usually a toilet cleaning contract is signed for multiple years. One group of thieves had a toilet cleaning contract franchise for 15 years or something. Worth hundreds of millions of Ringgit.
Simple, low technology, low value added enterprises (like importing rice, motor vehicle inspection, weighing machine calibration, parking ships near the pelabuhan, collecting garbage, polishing politicians b@ll$) suddenly become billion Ringgit industries. Why? How? Because they are monopolies.
Imagine if you are given a monopoly license to operate ALL shoe repairing (tukang kasut) in Kuala Lumpur. All those abang tukang kasut di kaki lima will disappear. Or they must pay you a franchise fee. Overnite you will become a multi-millionaire or maybe billionaire. Because you have the monopoly over all the tukang kasut business in Kuala Lumpur. A low value added, low technology, low education, low skill set, bodoh punya industry suddenly becomes a billion Ringgit monopoly business.
Or garbage collection. Suddenly you get the monopoly license to collect all the garbage in S-----gor. And you get paid by the government - DANA AWAM or duit rakyat or public funds. Its a monopoly license - there is no competition. And you are paid directly from taxpayers money. Of course you will become a multi-millionaire.
This is what impoverishes the other people in the country (about 34 million of them) who did not get a monopoly license or an oligopoli business or direct access to taxpayers funds to pay insanely exhorbitant prices for government contracts and projects.
Genuine business people who become rich do not create inequality. Genuinely rich people become rich by taking risks, by developing new products and services that are sold to the consumers for a fair price in an open and competitive market. Genuinely rich people do business without any monopoly or oligopoly licenses, without any tongkats, subsidies, quotas, permits, APs bla bla. Without cables, cronyism and corruption.
The more genuine business people there are in the country the wealthier the people will become. ALL the people.
But the more thieves you create in the country WHO STEAL DIRECTLY FROM TAXPAYERS FUNDS (DANA AWAM) OR INDIRECTLY FROM THE CONSUMERS (licensed monopolies, oligopolies, cartels, cronies), the more inequality there will be in the country.
This is what is happening in Malaysia now.
- This situation cannot last forever.
- This situation must come to an end.
- This situation will end in disaster.
- And we are already in the disaster now.
- To all the b@st@rd thieves please take note.
