Ant and Grasshopper – The Malaysian version
March 19, 2008
I got this interesting forward from a friend:
Older Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs, dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
Modern Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs, dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
TV1, TV2 & TV3 show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
The majority of the Malaysian Parliment is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper be allowed to suffer so?
Khairy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant’s house. Nazri goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding thatGrasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Most of the related people criticize the Malaysian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.
The local newspaper & the Internet are flooded with online petitions seeking support for the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support or the wrath of God for non-compliance) .
Deputy Minister immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers.
Hishammudin makes ‘More Special Reservation’ for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.
The Ant is fined for failing to comply with 30% sharing and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes; its home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by maju ———.
Prime Minister announces to the whole Malaysia that this is part of the NEP and all have to respect, no questions asked and have to follow it.
Many years later…..
The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company
100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in Malaysia and because of losing a lot of hard-working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, Malaysia is still a developing country!
All because the ANTS are still doing their work.
Minimum salary required to maintain a family in Malaysia
March 9, 2008
What is the minimum monthly salary a Malaysian person needs to earn to sustain a young family? Here are my estimates assuming the young family consists of a working father, a housewife and two dependent children.
- RM1200 – Meals (30 days x 4 people x RM10 per person per day)
- RM750 – Monthly house repayment (low cost housing for 30 years)
- RM500 – Monthly car repayment (proton sage for 7 years)
- RM300 – Petrol and road tax
- RM300 – Children’s education fees
- RM200 – Monthly insurance and medical bills
- RM100 – Electricity and water bill
- RM100 – Phone bill
- RM150 – Miscellaneous
That totals to RM3600 per month. Assuming the EPF rate of 11% and approximately around 9% income tax, the working father has to earn a gross salary of RM4500 to have a take home salary of RM3600.
When trying to figure out the income distribution, I came across this article from Aliran published in 2004 that tries to address the same question I posed here. While I believe their estimates are more conservative and simplistic, the conclusion is similar.
Using their household income pyramid with my estimates shows that only slightly over 10% of the population earns RM4500 and above.
An Australian newspaper The Age has a fascinating report on how Malaysian government’s strong desire to facilitate the Bumiputra is actually a counter productive strategy. The article basically says that the government is much more interested in increasing the percentage of financial equity owned by the Bumiputra and keeping up with appearance to the international audience rather than increasing the actual size of the total financial equity.
In reality, because of the government policies to favour the Bumiputra in almost every aspect (financially, educational access, socially, politically); the non-Bumiputras feel they are unfairly discriminated against and would rather take their skills and money elsewhere (Singapore, Australia, UK, USA, etc) where they are given fair access, rights and respect.
The news article concludes with the following words:
“Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city — Petronas has paid for them all. It’s been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.
Why? Because Malaysia’s oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that’s just five years away. So it’s in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.”
Malaysian officials elegantly shrugs off these comments by challenging the author’s foregin nationality (Australian to be precise), rather than the contents of his report with a veiled warning to any Malaysian who might make similar comments.
Well, if this is our attitude towards constructive criticisms, then Malaysia Bodoh indeed.
PS: For those of you not familiar with the racial issues, please see the very well and fairly written Wikipedia entry on Bumiputra.
