By Toffee
21/10/2022
IT COULD PLUNGE TO RM 6.30 BY MARCH WARNS A RESPECTABLE MONITORY EXPERT IF BN OR ITS TWIN PN WINS.
Equals USD 21.08 which means 1 Ringgit is US$4.744 today.And it is going to get so terrible if BN wins warns international monetary expert.
My friend from Singapore 15 years my junior, his late elder brother was a closer friend till he passed away, came over for the Diwali weekend, I picked him up from the airport sent him to his hotel first after which we went for dinner.
I took him to a place where we'd have some quiet and some really good food and drinks and moreover the ambience was good it was really comfortable the joint is really classic.
I'll not divulge the name of the Restaurant for two reasons, this blog does not do promotions and secondly some of the major shareholders are Malay and the place is not Halal, but the food is just superb, the drinks are fine and because I am of Indian origin we got a free cocktail each compliments of bar for Diwali, my friend turned to me remarked rather sarcastically, "Wow!!, in KL being Indian has its advantages I see," and laughed.
The Wagyu Beef was superb, it was Wagyu from Kobe and it is rare here in Malaysia, I chose tenderloin medium and my friend a Buddhist went for Ducks breast, not being connoisseurs of wine we opted to go with Scotch, I prefer blends and he Single Malts so we left the bottle aside and ordered by the shots.
I apologized for not being sensitive by bringing him to a place that served beef when he chose Duck Breast, "oh for goodness sake Toffee shut up," he said, "why are you talking like as though I am like your Melayu politicians, as long as I have something in the menu that I can eat, it is perfectly alright with me, and Duck Breast I love it, you don't get it just anywhere in K and even in Singapore, you see with most of us Buddhist as long as there is food which we can eat and has no religious constraints eat it regardless of the place where it is served, you can eat what ever you want on the menu it does not disturb us, to each his own."
To cut a long story short when we finished dinner he said, "Toffee it's been a long time, 10 years and that's a long time, it was a great meet we must do this more often it was a beautiful night all that catching up, but please let me pay, and I am insisting he said, the bill was Ringgit 2167.5 to be exact, then after paying with his card he said it is only about $600 to me."
That statement of his hit me like a bolt for the blue, I wish he hadn't said that because it suddenly dawned on me, "My God" I thought what has become of our ringgit, I renumber when we parted currencies it was 0.9 RM (Malaysian $ as it was then known), to a Singapore Dollar we had the advantage but now what a mess, we have actually become poorer so much poorer, no wonder the costs of daily essentials have gone up so much higher. My two thousand over ringgit is worth less then Singapore $600?
My friend works with an International financial Institution, and his work involves high level monitoring of regional and other notable international currencies and he tells me that the Malaysian Ringgit is very volatile and is being watched very closely "the market reckons should BN and especially UMNO win the elections the confidence in the Ringgit will plummet easily to RM5.30 in a short time to the US dollar, it will be worse if the Old Guard moves in" (meaning Najib and his crew I presumed ) if that happens it has the potential to go down toRM6.30 and even lower , the Thai Bhat may surpass you in the not so distant future.
He advised me to park my money elsewhere. he is active in international and regional fora, contributing to discussions on
global financial stability and international financial regulatory
reforms among others. "In ASEAN, Myanmar and Malaysian currencies are areas of concern," he told me.
"You'll notice," he told me, " the day your Prime Minister announced he will be dissolving Parliament you stock market plunged, and your Ringgit took a nose dive, this is because the foreigners do not trust that leadership of yours in managing the economy, and that is a fact, and if you have been keeping in touch and know a bit of your recent history, the real history I mean, Anwar Ibrahim was held in high esteem by both the IMF and the World Bank during his tenure ass Finance Minister of Malaysia."
The reason he gave me for Malaysia losing its status as one of the Tigers of the Asian economies was because of our reactions to the 1997 monetary crisis, your Mahathir Mohammed chose to blame George Soros for what he really engineered by way of Cronyism, Corruption and Nepotism, which was then Anwar's cry for cleaning up, before the crisis befell you after which Mahathir made a blunder which you are paid for then losing your status as a Tiger and are still paying for now.
"Although a lot of people think that the pegging of the Ringgit at that time was right, especially Mahathir Mohammed it was not, Mahathir has no idea of financial management the architect for that plan to peg the Ringgit s fas Nor Mohamed Yakcop a close Mahathir confidante at Bank Negara at that time, but Mahathir took the credit for it and rightly so because you can now see the effects of that decision" he told me.
"The IMF at that time had predicted what was to happen to Malaysia and so too did many other Business Analysts, the writing was on the wall, you were redeeming the corrupted, you were redeeming them and when you redeem the corrupted your level of corruption only escalates till it destroys you completely that is what is happening now, and believe me the IMF, the World Bank, all financial Institutions are watching, watching their predictions come true, and it is, it's happening in front of your own eyes, " he said.
"The pegging gave the UMNO Malays the attitude of invincibility that they could worm themselves of any financial crisis and that corruption pays, even today if you were to privately talk to an UMNO Division head or Branch head about corruption this is what they'll tell you, 'how else do we do Business and become rich, the Chinese have everything,' without realizing that the Chinese work hard for their money," he said.
"Singapore, Korea, Taiwan bit the bullet they survived and are much better off then you and while you sink Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam are on your tail and soon your children will be looking for jobs there, fortunes will be reversed, it is already beginning, go find out how many Malaysians are working in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, China and India, your government may not want to give you the numbers but many already are, my friend," he said shaking his head.
I immediately remembered asking a Director of National Productivity Centre once if we have bench marked our productivity against that of Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia and if we did where did we stand this was in the late 90's we saw it coming, he just brush off the question, I wonder if we are doing it even now..
The 1997 financial crisis was only a warning, your government should have used it to realign as the other tigers did, but in an economy where you rob Peter to pay Paul you can expect only blind loyalty from Paul and that is exactly what is happening in this country, you can see it happening, but the Pauls led by greed for a fistful of Ringgit are blinded of the danger they pose not only to you, but to themselves and their Children as well, they can't see beyond that fist full of Ringgit. The pegging was the alternative to enable the UMNO to buy support at that time, to give out fist full of ringgit to supporters, I wonder if Mahathir even realised the deep pit he was throwing the country into.
"Well" my friend said, he was safe, all his money is in Singapore and he has invested in landed properties here in Malaysia.
"Make no mistake I love this country, I love the Malays they are the best people you can ever meet and have as friends but the UMNO brand of politics have spoiled them and they need a strong Malay to awaken them up from this state of hypnotic trance they are in - a hypnotic trance that used race and politicised religion to actually put them in a state where anything they say goes. How else do you explain things like "Bossku" he asked, he's right.
As we were talking and walking to the cart park, he told me the last time PH won the market was taken aback, no one expected the Barisan to be toppled, no one was prepared for that eventuality and as a result the ringgit took a slight dip but later with good monetary policies the market was beginning to pick up till that government was toppled.
"It's not gong be the same for you," he said, "unless you Malaysians really make a radical change, a change that can be seen as radical with serious people at the helm, a total shift in mentality, meritocracy must not be bad word anymore in this your beautiful country which I was forced to abandon as my children and their future came first , you need to lift your economy, or you people are in real trouble, very big trouble , because market sentiment has total disregard for corrupt countries and especially corrupt leaderships."
He told me more but it did not register, I was too worried and a lot of scenarios were just crossing my mind, my eldest grandchild will be preparing for tertiary education next year, what will it cost I was thinking, what about the four other grandchildren so a lot of what he told me went up in thin air, I was more preoccupied by the horror of the moment, I followed him back to his hotel, he had to leave the next morning his parents live in Perak, if only he was still around I'd have asked him more because he should know, his position in the industry makes him authoritative.
I will go to Singapore later this year if time permits to get the details .
Well we aren't given the real picture here, we are taken for a joy ride by the PN government and its UMNO finance minister, when our Ringgit dives the excuse is, "well there is no reason for it to, the fundamentals are strong," that is what the Finance Minister says what fundamentals is he talking about.
What fundamentals but for our currency that depends on so much direct foreign investment if there is no confidence where do we go next, do we turn out to be like the Philippines and Bangladesh where our children must go overseas and earn and send money back will that be our greatest source of foreign exchange?
China has put a stop with us, they may give us piece meal in future, their investments here are in trouble an once trust is lost, trust the Chinese never ever to trust you again, we know their involvement with the Najib Government, it was not China particularly, but rather Chinese Companies and that was the blunder, so China will not want that kind of involvement anymore, Xi Jin Peng is reexamining his policies, he is keeping a close watch of his Companies and the Company he keeps.
Hishamuddin said the Chinese foreign Minster was his elder brother, but that "elder brother" did nothing to give him Jho Low who Hishamuddin promised to bring back, that is the level of respect the Chinese Government has for the likes of the UMNO people. They got their reputation soiled because of UMNO, they will not be prepared for more.
The general Chinese population do not see it viable to invest in Malaysia, for many of them the City in the Jungle was a con game, when the ground rules for the "Malaysia My Second Home (MMSH) were abruptly changed drastically it made no sense of their investments. Chinese were investing into the MMSH because of the MMSH policy, it just got swept away.
We have lost the confidence of real big time investors not only from the west but the East as well and China too an it is the loss of confidence that will be the biggest deterrent in the inflow of foreign direct investment.
PN is BN in a different Cloak
The future looks scary if not bleak and the only way to salvage it is to change the Government, finish UMNO and the BN for good, PN is BN in a different cloak, they are corrupted to the chore they can't be salvaged, go for a government that will give us the truth about the situation no matter what, so we can jointly rebuild our nation.
VOTE PAKATAN HARAPAN AND PARTIES ALLIED TO THEM.
UNDI LA PAKATAN HARAPAN.
