COMMENT | Yes, please, give me RM1 million to spend
COMMENT | There is no such thing as a free lunch – that was the reminder by Employees Provident Fund (EPF) CEO Tunku Alizakri Raja Muhammad Alias in reference to the need to sell off assets to make funds available to depositors withdrawing from their Account 1 and Account 2.
True, but all of us would be able to afford lunch (and dinner) if the government were to take up the brilliant suggestion of Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal to help the people by forgiving debts and "printing money".
In a radio interview, the deputy minister proposed a "helicopter money" policy "where the central bank can directly print money and give it to the people so that they can spend it".
Poor fella – got challenged, criticised, and mocked for his humanitarian proposal to end hunger and belt-tightening, at the same time fueling the economy with an explosion of voracious consumption.
What’s not to like about the idea? Let me flesh out the deputy minister’s suggestion. I can see many positives and only one minor downside...
COMMENT | There is no such thing as a free lunch – that was the reminder by Employees Provident Fund (EPF) CEO Tunku Alizakri Raja Muhammad Alias in reference to the need to sell off assets to make funds available to depositors withdrawing from their Account 1 and Account 2.
True, but all of us would be able to afford lunch (and dinner) if the government were to take up the brilliant suggestion of Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal to help the people by forgiving debts and "printing money".
In a radio interview, the deputy minister proposed a "helicopter money" policy "where the central bank can directly print money and give it to the people so that they can spend it".
Poor fella – got challenged, criticised, and mocked for his humanitarian proposal to end hunger and belt-tightening, at the same time fueling the economy with an explosion of voracious consumption.
What’s not to like about the idea? Let me flesh out the deputy minister’s suggestion. I can see many positives and only one minor downside.
Instead of the government spending billions on programmes to uplift and aid, and reporting to Parliament that wonderful progress was made, but will still need billions more to deal with unfinished work - just roll the presses and give a million ringgit to every Malaysian. From squalling babies in maternity wards to senior citizens in nursing homes.
There will be instant abolition of poverty in the country. No more pesky negative United Nations reports quibbling over percentage points. No more putting up with international and local NGOs moaning about institutional neglect and individual persecution, low wages, and long servitude.
Imagine – 30-over million Malaysians with a million each to spend. The Covid-hit economy wouldn’t need to wait for a vaccine or require CPR from the government’s budget.
All that spending power will be like two greased paddles charging a twin-barreled kick to the barely ticking heart of the economy. Convoys of cars will be driving off showrooms. Pawnshops will be pleading to the government to help them survive the doldrums.
Economists grimly warned of hyperinflation. One MP was even prompted to evoke Germany in the 1930s, bundles of worthless money to buy a loaf of bread, money that must be spent in the morning because by evening its value would have plummeted some more - a fevered economic hopelessness that fed the rise of the marauding Brownshirts and the dark spectre of Nazism.
That was a bit melodramatic, though I also reserve the right to no longer be surprised by anything our government does and the dire consequences.
The bane of inflation
One of the few advantages of age - I have chalked seven decades - is that things become relative with time.
As a kid in the 1950s, I paid 20 sen for a bowl of noodles. Now it’s RM6.50 and more, with much fewer ingredients, don’t even talk about the dilution of taste.
A banana was five sen for one. Now a bunch of six or eight is weighed, costing by the kilo and will cost quite a few ringgit, even from the roadside lorry parked near my condo.
In 1970, my first year in university, I picked up the vices of alcohol and cigarettes (among other things). A bottle of beer was RM1.20, a large bottle RM2.30. Now? A packet of cigarettes was RM1.00. Now?
So as Einstein said, things are relative; hyper-inflation is relative.
So what if a bowl of noodles were to hyper-inflate to RM500? If we were millionaires, it’s no big deal. The price is relative.
From all the spending, the government will be getting back much of the millions via charges, taxes, duties, fees, compounds, fines, licences, permits, etc, all the multiple ways the government bleeds the cash-cow citizens.
The Special Affairs Department (Jasa) would be off to a flying start, trumpeting to the whole world that every Malaysian is a millionaire, eat your heart out Singapore. We might even have to keep an eye out for Singaporean illegals trying to sneak in.
That’s the minor downside. Our wealth will be an even more magnetic lure for immigrants and people-smugglers. Flotillas of boats, crammed with humanity, landing every night. A horde of the desperate snaking through forested trails.
My suggestion for the problem is for former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak to talk to his golfing buddy US President Donald Trump, about building an unbreachable wall to keep out the poor riff-raff. Turn our entire country into another world’s-first – the first gated country.
And get his advice on how to get Thailand and Indonesia to pay for it. Just don’t tell him that we will probably deal with contractors from China rather than the United States to build the walls, or he will get into a hissy Twitter fit.
Forget the above. Just one clinching point for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to consider the proposal – if every Malaysian were to receive a million ringgit, at the next general elections, how many of them will be ingrates?
How many of them will patiently queue, have their thumbs smeared with ink, fuelled by the thought, "I received a million from this government, I must cast my vote against it"?
Sure, there will always be a few. Give them a million a year for life, they will still say not enough, sod them.
Forget about RM50 or RM500 hand-outs. Think big, win big.
THOR KAH HOONG is a veteran journalist.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
