"You know, we have US$900 billion long-term and short-term debts. If we do not pay, they will make you bankrupt.
"You see what happened in Greece... Here, we borrowed more than Greece and we are poorer than Greece," he said.
Such gigantic lies in each sentence.
Firstly, Malaysia does not have "huge" debts. Malaysia's Debt-to-GDP ratio is now at 50.7%. This is much lower than 92 other countries in the world which includes the likes of Singapore, Germany, USA, UK and pretty much the rest of the developed world. So, 91 countries in the world would have to go bankrupt first before Malaysia.
And at 50.7%, it is less than double the 103.4% level in 1986 under Mahathir after he had more than doubled our debt levels within 5 years of him taking power.
Also, our government debt is not US$900mil (RM3.3 trillion). It is RM680mil or about US$170 billion. I wonder where Tun Mahathir plucked the US$900mil number from?
If it is indeed RM3.3 trillion then our Debt-to-GDP level would be close to 300% and would make us highest in the world - much higher than Japan's 220%.
Also, I do not know who Mahathir meant when he said " If we do not pay, they will make you bankrupt."
Malaysia's govt debt is 97.5% denominated in Ringgit - a currency we control. This means that unlike Greece which owes and uses Euro that is beyond their control, Malaysia essentially owe ourselves so no one can make us bankrupt.
Malaysia also does not owe a single sen to the World Bank or IMF so who exactly are these people that Mahathir say will make us bankrupt?
Comparing us with Greece is also out of the question. Greece has a debt-to-GDP of 180% right now - more than triple of our 50.7%.
The international credit ratings agencies rate Greece at a grade11 notches lower than Malaysia. Moody's had given Greece a rating of Caa3 compared to Malaysia's rating of A3, which is investment grade.
Caa3 is classified as "Rated as poor quality and very high credit risk." while A3 is given as "Rated as upper-medium grade and low credit risk."
In fact, during the entire time Mahathir was Prime Minister, Malaysia right until he retired never reached "A" status investment grade.
However, Tun Mahathir does indeed know when a country would be close to bankruptcy. In the late 1990s, Mahathir had to publicly approach Japan and Singapore. for emergency loans to save Malaysia.
Unlike now, Mahathir also had to create DanaHarta and DanaModal to bail-out and recapitalize our corporates and banks which were on the verge of failure.. Our banks today all make record profits compare to the large losses then.
At that time, our stock market plunged 80% to 200 points - unlike now where our stock-market index at 1796 is more than double the 800 points level when Dato Sri Najib Razak took over as PM.
Large numbers of projects such as the Plaza Rakyat, Bukit Beruntung, KL Linear City and Grand Hilton projects were abandoned - unlike today where no such projects have been abandoned.
At that time, our Ringgit also plunged more than 60% from RM2.30 to as low as RM4.86 to the USD before Mahathir had to impose capital controls to peg it at RM3.80.
Given his experience then, Mahathir would certainly know when a country is close to bankruptcy and he knows today, we are far from those dark days.
But I wonder what kind of desperation or motivation would drive a senior statesman such as Tun Mahathir to badmouth his own country and lie through his teeth like this?
Eric See-To.
K7L : Kena sedas... Orang Cina akan kembali sokong BN!..
0 ulasan:
Post a Comment