I agree with M Bakri Musa - Get rid of the 3-D jobs . Malaysia should work towards eliminating 3-D jobs that create demand for lowly paid and unskilled workers. Malaysia must create a new foundation.

Not all is well on the score of 3-D jobs in the US as well. There are millions of undocumented foreign workers in the US performing tasks that Americans simply will not do. There will always be room for work of that kind, but a country's future is in jobs that require more skill for higher pay - jobs should become positions.

So it should be in Malaysia. But to date, all the government can do is fret over and chase illegal foreign workers and talk about importing even more workers from more countries such as Pakistan. Enough.

The government has really done a poor job with subsidies. The diesel shortage was an unfortunate creation of the government's shortsighted policies on subsidies. All in the name of 'preventing burdens from being placed on the public'.

I think the public can look out for itself. Trucking companies and bus companies need to look a little further down the road than simply insisting on having everything cheap, cheap, cheap. They need new equipment, better trained and more conscientious operators and better in-house systems - the entire industry is operating on the cusp of failure simply to keep prices low.

The government needs to stop squeezing and complaining about price increases. Let the market forces work. Will prices go up? Indeed, they will, but a capitalistic economy is like a pot on the boil. It will overheat, it will boil over and some will not like it.

Once in a while it makes a big mess. The government can do only so much to rein in market forces. Subsidies and keeping labour costs low by encouraging low-cost workers of any kind are two means that do not work in the long run as a country moves up the ladder from developing to developed status.

If Malaysians are going to play with the big boys of the world, they better know how to take knocks in the their economy. Wawasan 2020 is not a magical thing. It takes tough skin and resourcefulness to be a developed country.

That means sharpening the edge, not continuing to play to the gallery with schemes that don't work in the long run so that 'the public is not burdened'.