COMMENT | Cash, on its own, has no intrinsic value. It is just a piece of paper. The value of cash, however, is immediately transformed when it is backed by precious metals, such as gold or silver.

This would be a system of exchange that fell within the dictate of Islamic laws in order to curb wild and blind speculation. Of course, these days you have fiat money.

During the mid-17th century, for example, the price of Dutch tulips, which were imported from Ottoman Turkey or planted as cash crops in the Netherlands, went berserk. A few tulips alone were pricier than the actual value of gold.

When former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad critiqued the fallacy of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's "cash is king" approach, he was doing it from three standpoints.

Morally, and ethically, one's services to God, nation and country should not be incentivised by the pursuit of cash, and more cash. The latter then becomes a block chain of greed which the country cannot overcome.

And if cash is borrowed in large sums, as was done in 1MDB and various mega-projects supported through loans by China, then cash consumed now becomes future liabilities and debts.

Cash, in this sense, can become bad debts to rule over Malaysia, at which point, the country will have to be in permanent servitude; either to the banks that did the lending, or to the countries that got Malaysia hooked on debts. We have seen how debt entrapment works. Thus, “cash is king” carries serious strategic implications.

In Washington DC, Najib’s "cash is king" approach, as Mahathir rightly pointed out, was on full display. Najib pledged more than RM100 billion ringgit in a recorded six-minute session with US President Donald Trump.

If the six-minute session cannot be used as a benchmark, then the press statement of the joint comprehensive partnership between the US and Malaysia must be one of the most expensive documents in the history of international...