I refer to the call by our former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad to review the ringgit's peg to the US dollar and the subsequent response from the Central Bank that any review of the ringgit will take into account its performance against a basket of currencies and not any one currency.

A regulator's view is understandably going to be different from that of a practitioner's view let alone that of a retired prime minister notwithstanding the fact that he is the very author of the peg.

To a regulator it could be just a matter of managing money as a stock (such as foreign exchange reserves) and flows (such as movements in current and capital accounts of the balance of payments).

It is a matter of volatility, seasonality and trends; of monitoring and bench-marking it as aggregates and parameters using a set of 'analytics' and comparing it against a set of standards and best practices.

Then comes various verdicts based on cold clinical numbers. But this executive 'dashboard only' approach would certainly do us more harm than good if not tampered with good judgment and wisdom in the mid-term (let alone the long term).

This perspective sees money only as a variable flow per se and neglects its discriminatory impact on the importers and exporters. It also distorts the domestic pricing mechanism and the purchasing power of the citizens at large.

Regulators love to comply with international standards and practices and set new standards - just to make themselves as the cream of the crop for their peers to benchmark with envy.

The syllogistic argument that a cow has four legs and it is handled by the nose and that an elephant also has four legs and therefore it too should be handled by the nose was once very much subscribed to by the IMF when it prescribed generic remedies - for Latin America to Indonesia - to address economic ailments.

This approach had invariably led to simplistic diagnoses and wrong prescriptions. We have seen what has happened to Indonesia following the Asian economic downturn. It has caused a few presidents, finance ministers and central bank governors to loose their chairs in succession not to mention the ensuing social and political instability before some semblance of stability was restored.

Let us not fall into the same folly. It is not without reason that some Indonesian economists use the acronym IMF to mean 'I Am Finished'.

Whatever others would say about Mahathir, I would maintain that he is a realist and a pragmatist apart from being a great statesman. He had put up a strong stand against the simplistic IMF prescriptions.

He dared to close the gates when financial barbarians such as the hedge-fund managers launched their opportunistic attacks. He did very well to, very much to the chagrin of his detractors. As an accomplished politician, his assets were the people and their livelihoods.

To him, being empathic to the plight of the people was more important than being just technically plausible. It is the livelihoods and interest of the people that should prevail - not just nice numbers. From his perspective, therefore, the ringgit is already due for re-pegging or to use his own terminology 're-fixing'.

Our economy has its own inherent strength and uniqueness apart from being at a different phase of development when compared to other developing countries. As a multiracial country, the so-called 'welfare' impact of a monetary and fiscal policy must always be carefully considered and not just dismissed only as 'externalities' or extraneous factors.

Let the view of Mahathir prevail; let the purchasing power of the people be enhanced by re-pegging the ringgit to say RM3.40 to the greenback.