Sigh ! Sigh ! Sigh

A) Extracts from Malaysia-Finance Blogspot :-

The Malaysian bourse seems to be just catching up to the highs being registered by Dow Jones, Hang Seng, etc... For all Malaysian dealers and remisiers, stop for a moment and ponder, this is a 6 year high and just look at the market activity, look at your take home pay... does it feel like a 6 year high??? When your market is at a 6 year high and you are still not taking friends and families out for dinner and stuffs, ... can you imagine what it will be like if its not at any kind of highs?? The Bursa and Finance Ministry must take a lot responsibility for the capital markets road map we have taken for the past few years. In all probablity, we have adequate people at the top, but even more obvious is probably the people we have are not good enough. Anyone with the political will to do something??? !! Sometimes, its not enough to have average employees, especially when the stakes are so high. The secondary institutions deemed to be responsible would be Khazanah and EPU. The right people at the top will make the right things to happen. Right now, we are basically going with the flow, not making inroads in things that really matter.

B) Extracts from icapital.biz :-

When Lee Kuan Yew said that the Chinese in Malaysia were systemically marginalised, it was not surprising. What surprised many people was the angry and high profile reaction from some Malaysians to this already well-known, matter-of-fact statement. However, the biggest surprise in this event was that these people and the Cabinet had missed an even more important point - the whole Malaysia has been marginalised. Foreign direct investors are not coming in droves; neither are portfolio investors. Malaysia is simply not on the radar screen. The fact that the problem of a marginalised Malaysia is less important than having to react to a statement by Lee Kuan Yew shows the decline Malaysia has sunk into. We devote pages after pages to rebutting Lee Kuan Yew’s statement. Why do we not devote pages after pages to the bigger issue of a marginalised Malaysia ?

Our Cabinet was very efficient and fast when in came to declaring 23 Oct as a holiday for civil servants. Wah, it must really be of National Strategic Importance. At the same time, they are very silent and slow on the perpetual haze problem. This health threatening problem has been around for so long and yet no concrete and decisive action has been taken. We guess that since it has been around for so long, we might as well accept it. After all, solving this problem would not translate into more thanks or appreciation while declaring a holiday makes one popular instantaneously. The same goes for the review of the sacking of the judges and the former Lord President. Let us make those decisions that would quickly make us look good and competent. Don’t bother with the bigger and more important problems. They will go away by themselves because Malaysians would forget about them and by the time the consequences of ignoring these problems are felt or experienced, I would have retired. By then, it will be somebody else’s problem-lah. The way we solve our problems is best illustrated by the announcement that the speed limit would be lowered by 10 kmh during the coming festive period. This is typical of the quick-fix mentality of our leaders. Instead of solving problems at the fundamental levels, the Malaysian political leaders and government simply adore the quickies.

After the festive season is over, the problem solving will then have to wait until the next major festival, when another famous Malaysian quickie would be announced. In the meantime, the whole country gets more and more marginalised and our political leaders and policymakers would scream and shout when some one reminds us of the harsh realities. Welcome to Malaysia, the Land of Quickies.

When it comes to the KLSE, we should rename this NDNA market as the Market of Quickies – it can only manage a quick spurt and then a long pause.