A number of your readers have recently been comparing car prices in Malaysia and the US, as in the case of Lee Fai Dao, who points out that an American can buy a brand-new one for US$15,000 or so, or RM56,000, and that this is about four to five months' salary for a recent college graduate in the US.

But there is perhaps an even more significant point your readers tend to miss: that the normal, average car (in fact, the best-selling car in the US) is a Toyota Camry, with Honda Accord coming in a close second or third.

But these cars are considered luxury vehicles in Malaysia while in the US they are very ordinary family cars. This is how the Malaysian government treats it citizens in the economic sphere. And as for politics and religion, what can I say?

Except that, although I have strong ties to Malaysia including a Chinese Malaysian wife, thank God, I was born in a free and reasonable country that I can always return to.