YOURSAY ‘Are you referring to Tajuddin Ramli and the glory of MAS?’
Dr M: It's not cronyism, we need rich people
Aries46: This over simplified tongue-in-cheek bullshit of the ‘rickshaw puller’ and ‘satay seller’ has been Mr 10%’s standard stock-in trade response at every forum that he is caught with his pants down for the litany of havoc and crony capitalism that were the hallmarks of his heydays as top dog.
If former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad is contending that his wasteful projects, the IPPs (independent power producers), toll concessionaires, Umno Baru rent-seekers and beneficiaries of the host of negotiated tenders, were merely to increase taxes and not to reward his supporters and cronies, then why were the deals so lopsided and shrouded in secrecy or hidden under Official Secrets Act (OSA) till today?
Is he denying that many of these projects were so mired in corruption that they have drained the resources of this nation to the point of bankruptcy so much so they have brought more miseries than benefits to the long suffering ordinary masses who are the real taxpayers of this nation?
The divided decadent nation that we inherit is Mahathir's true legacy to Malaysians.
Fido Dido: This is typical of Mahathir - condescending, unapologetic, illogical and outright dismissive. The facts speak for themselves.
Old man, please go away. Let the people repair the damages you have wrought upon us over the past few decades.
Milosevic: A few questions for Mahathir:
1. How did the cronies get rich? No one resents Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. They made the world better and created jobs. Tell me what your boys have done? Are you referring to Tajuddin Ramli and the glory of MAS?
2. Who paid for them? Now if you impose high tariffs and have prices way off from international prices, like your pet, obsessive, ridiculous car project, what you are doing is transferring income and wealth from ordinary consumers to your favourite entrepreneurs.
Okay, say they pay taxes, like 28 percent. Great. But the rakyat paid close to 50 percent of the total revenue of these car companies through high prices. So who actually pays the tax?
3. How many have been bailed out using public money and how many entered business through siphoning money from the government revenue stream by grabbing government services once provided competently at reasonable cost to the rakyat?
Indeed, Mahathir needs think much harder for new ways to defend his boys.
Paul Warren: The question really is what did your cronies build or add to the economy? Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary is an embarrassment to say the least. He traded and made some money, and from there he bought some already functioning organisations.
Bernas does nothing new that was not already being done from the days before he was born. Ever since he took over the sugar industry, the price of sugar has gone up and the majority Malays are happily paying the price to support him. What was wrong with them paying less for sugar when it was controlled by a Chinaman?
Bookshops, sure, he just bought up MPH with surplus funds that he had. For Proton and DRB Hicom, once again he bought over an existing organisation that only survives because of all the protection it gets. Once again, nothing new is created.
AwakenedLand: Dr M, an efficient and transparent open tender for all projects related to public/private sectors will eliminate the rent-seeking and cronyism, and you probably end up with more well-deserved entrepreneurs who become rich through their own sweat and competency.
It encourages more of the similar kind to work harder and smarter, thus creating even more capable and rich entrepreneurs. This is a pragmatic model of a free market and capitalism.
In the end, you will have plenty of entrepreneurs to feed the government to fund its social programmes. In the long run, we need to eradicate the negative culture of rent-seeking, corruption and cronyism to prepare Malaysia for the era of globalisation.
YUNoAnon: Such a convenient excuse to enrich friends and families. You may have indirectly allowed your rich friends to open up more jobs, but this now begs the questions; are these jobs paying as much in relation to what your cronies make?
And are you even taxing them? If the average person who earns a four-figure salary has to pay 10 percent of income tax, then these people who earns millions and billions would have paid so much more, one would wonder where is their tax payment?
If so, Malaysians would not have to be burdened by all these rises in prices.
Negarawan: Malaysia is a failed state largely because of Mahathir's policies which encourage cronyism, incompetency, ‘tidak apa’ (don’t care) attitude, and rampant corruption.
If Malaysia were a well-managed and united country, it could be greater than what Singapore is today.
Democracy?: Mahathir's self-interest is clear. The greatest stream of tax revenues our government can build will come from our greatest talents who can generate profits, jobs and tax revenues, not well-connected cronies.
The government would have been receiving much more tax revenues had we been practicing a system of meritocracy.
We have many politicians' pockets to fill in every business contracts. This leads to corruption, subsequent loss in tax collection, and loss of money multiplier effect in the economy. These factors reduces funds to assist the nation's low income group through education, health and other benefits.
Spinnot: “How do we solve that problem? Dole out money like BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia)? But we didn’t have money back then,” said Mahathir.
But does the government really have the money now?
Don't be fooled by Mahathir's perverted logic
Ex-PM turns his 'Malay Dilemma' on its head
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