I must say I agree with the writer of the letter VMY 2007 success not for small minds in that 90 percent of our lawmakers need to take up a refresher course on how small our world has become.

But there is more to consider instead of just sending our MPs for refresher course. If we really want to think about it, it is actually MPs of the right calibre that we need and we can see this in our two neighbours.

Just look at Singapore where the ruling People's Action Party head-hunts those candidates whom they have been observing for some time and consider to be capable of becoming an effective lawmaker cum policy-maker. This perhaps explains why Singapore is ahead of us in most areas despite their tremendous lack of natural resources which we have and yet are bent on wasting.

Turning next to Thailand, maybe a military government is not so bad an idea after all since the generals ruling the country are all the cream of the crop - how else to be a general unless you have the right foundation in terms of a sound education up to the tertiary level?

Most of these Thai generals have been to American universities apart from prestigious military academies such as West Point and Sandhurst. It's just too bad that the generals have lived up to the saying 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely'. Even so, they seem to be doing the right thing because the Thai baht has until recently been creeping up steadily against the Malaysian ringgit.

Now coming back to Malaysia, it is no thanks to our partisan politics that we find that our MPs tend to be any Tom, Dick, and Harry from backgrounds as diverse as office boys, railway workers etc, who are elected to become the nation's lawmakers and policy-makers so long as they are popular among their own race group and vocal in lambasting other racial groups.

Is it any wonder that our social woes keep on increasing, problems never seem to get solved and the cost of living keeps on increasing despite being a 'rich' country?