The Malaysian Insider

JAN 19 — In spite of opposition that saw the streets of Kuala Lumpur filled with pro-fuel subsidy groups during the Abdullah administration, efforts to liberalise the fuel subsidy regime has gone a long way.

Out of a number of its arguments, one that criticises the untargeted and blanket nature of the policy has gained tremendous traction. The fact that it benefits those who do not need or deserve the subsidy is clearly one of the main motivators — the bigger drivers are probably cost and waste — behind the reformation of the policy.

JAN 14 — How many times have we heard the statement that if so and so did not exist, certain problems would go away? Specifically, one side would blame Umno and Barisan Nasional for racial and religious problems in Malaysia, while the other would blame PKR and its allies for the instability in the country.

The truth is that politicians and political parties get too much credit for the various issues the country faces. As controversial issues erupt, the blame game begins in earnest. The usual suspects get apportioned with the blame at the slightest chance by the other side, as if there is a quota to fill. The controversy revolving around the use of the term “Allah” is a case in point.

JAN 9 — In an ideal world, moral authority is unnecessary for a person to hold a position, to raise a point, to criticiSe it, to object to an action, to advocate it or anything similar. What is of value is the argument itself. It is most regrettable however that we live here down in the mud where the difference between ideal and reality is self-evident. That affects many things, including effort to address racial issues.

JAN 1 — Economics has been labelled as some sort of a discipline that predicts the future. The application of various models and efforts at testing its various hypotheses that sometimes result in the affirmative may have contributed to that reputation but it is not about predicting the future. Rather, it is about finding lessons from the past, learning from it and applying it for future endeavours. More humbly perhaps, it serves as a cautionary tale.

DEC 24 — The dawn of the 21st century disappoints the part of me growing up reading works of science fiction.

Here we are living in a much too glorified new century and there are still no flying cars crisscrossing the sky, no aliens from outer space walking our streets and no human bases across the solar system. We did send a roti canai to space but many things remain out of this world.

Underneath this childish disappointment is another part of me who is impressed at humanity’s pace of technological progress.