Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Happy New Year -2009

I take this opportunity to wish all of you a Happy New Year.

2009 is expected to be an eventful and roller coaster year.

Saya mengambil kesempatan ini mengucapkan selamat tahun baru kepada kawan-kawan saya.

Ramai yang meramalkan tahun 2009 sebagai tahun penuh cabaran dan dugaan. Marilah kita sama-sama berusaha untuk mengharungi sebarang cabaran dan dugaan yang akan ditemui kelak.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

人民公正党巫统化

不管怎样,我始终认为人民公正党是巫统的化身。

很多目前在公正党的强人,都是安华在巫统呼风唤雨时的跟随者。当然,在那段时间,华人社会有时候往往对安华的一些言论举止“咬牙切齿”。

公正党最近公布了各州联委会主席人选:

各州联委会主席的最新名单:彭亨州法兹阿都拉曼(Fauzi Abdul Rahman)、槟州再林(Zahrain Mohamed Hashim)、森美兰卡玛鲁(Kamarul Baharin Abbas)、雪兰莪/联邦直辖区卡立依布拉欣(Khalid Ibrahim)、沙巴/砂拉越安华依布拉欣(Anwar Ibrahim)、吉打阿末卡欣(Ahmad Kassim)、吉兰丹阿兹卡迪(Aziz Ab Kadir)、玻璃市佐哈里(Johari Shafie)、马六甲卡立嘉化(Khalid Jaafar)、柔佛查丽哈慕斯达法(Zaliha Mustaffa)、霹雳奥斯曼(Osman Abdul Rahman)及登嘉楼旺拉欣(Wan Rahim Wan Hamzah)。

这份名单清一色由该党马来党员担任州主席,原本以为在槟城可以委任华人出任州主席,但是,该党的华裔党员可要失望了。

I always opine that Parti Keadilan is “UMNO” in another form.

Just look at the important guys in the said Party , all of them are followers of Anwar when he was the strongman in UMNO. Of course , during those time when Anwar was almost at the helm of UMNO , some of his policies / announcements / deeds had caused many Chinese in Malaysia disillusioned , angry etc.

The recent appointments of the State Chairman of Parti Keadilan in all the 13 states supports my view that Parti Keadilan is another UMNO.

I believe that the voters who supported Keadilan and in particular its members in Penang must have expected that at least in the Penang State , Anwar would have appointed a non Malay to lead Penang State.

But , Anwar is Anwar , he will continue with his style as he was in UMNO.

This also explains why until now he has yet to openly state/declare his stand over the statement made by PAS Vice Chairman on the issue of Hudud Law.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

一百万拨款 V 首长把孩子送进独中

南洋商报北马版在25日封面访问槟州五间独中负责人关于来年报读独中的新生人数。

话题当然要谈到百万拨款。到底百万拨款对州内五间独中的招生是否有帮助?

参与槟州独中的实际工作者每一年在新学年开始时总是抱着战战兢兢的心情,因为大家都在担心到底会招收到多少新生。还有一点就是新生总是珊珊来迟,往往必须等到新学年要开始时才能够比较肯定人数。

为什么?

因为在槟城,有不少名校,是国民型中学,是家长的首选,大家都想把孩子送到国民型中学。讲的难听一点,在很多家长的眼中,独中就是“后备轮胎”!

看南洋商报的报道,觉的两位拿督的看法最中肯,百万拨款根本和独中招生没有关系,是两回事。

其实,可能很多人忘记了,首席部长在大约在今年中时为孩子从马六甲迁校到槟城时,当时他的顾问忘记劝他把孩子送到州内五间独中的其中一间。还有就是州内的华教协调委员会也忘了协调,不然,首长孩子读独中应该是最好的“金字招牌”。

有了金字招牌,独中校长们坐在办公室里面就有很多学生来了!

做好事、慈善事业一定是义务工作吗?

“点滴归公”,这是常常与慈善事业挂在一起的句子。

长久以来,在本地人的观念中,慈善事业一定要是义务的。同样的,华文教育工作也是慈善工作的一类,因此,大家也期待义务性质,不只义务,还要出钱出力。

在这方面,全各地的60间华文独立中学的董事、赞助人最清楚不过。但是,由董事、赞助人长期资助独中也不是办法,因此,近年来就有些有识之士提出了独中要“以校养校”,不能长期的依靠社会善长仁翁。

其实,在外国,就曾经出现一些专门帮慈善事业筹款的公司,这些公司的负责人都不是义务工作人员,相反的,他们的专业工作就是受委托来帮慈善机构集资筹款。

但是,这的确是一个深具争论性的课题。NEW YORK TIMES 的知名专栏作者,NICHOLAS KRISTOF 就在25/12/2008的文章提到了这个争论性的问题。

December 25, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

The Sin in Doing Good Deeds

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Here’s a question for the holiday season: If a businessman rakes in a hefty profit while doing good works, is that charity or greed? Do we applaud or hiss?

A new book, “Uncharitable,” seethes with indignation at public expectations that charities be prudent, nonprofit and saintly. The author, Dan Pallotta, argues that those expectations make them less effective, and he has a point.

Mr. Pallotta’s frustration is intertwined with his own history as the inventor of fund-raisers like AIDSRides and Breast Cancer 3-Days — events that, he says, netted $305 million over nine years for unrestricted use by charities. In the aid world, that’s a breathtaking sum.
But Mr. Pallotta’s company wasn’t a charity, but rather a for-profit company that created charitable events. Critics railed at his $394,500 salary — low for a corporate chief executive, but stratospheric in the aid world — and at the millions of dollars spent on advertising and marketing and other expenses.

“Shame on Pallotta,” declared one critic at the time, accusing him of “greed and unabashed profiteering.” In the aftermath of a wave of criticism, his company collapsed.

One breast cancer charity that parted ways with Mr. Pallotta began producing its own fund-raising walks, but the net sum raised by those walks for breast cancer research plummeted from $71 million to $11 million, he says.

Mr. Pallotta argues powerfully that the aid world is stunted because groups are discouraged from using such standard business tools as advertising, risk-taking, competitive salaries and profits to lure capital.

“We allow people to make huge profits doing any number of things that will hurt the poor, but we want to crucify anyone who wants to make money helping them,” Mr. Pallotta says. “Want to make a million selling violent video games to kids? Go for it. Want to make a million helping cure kids of cancer? You’re labeled a parasite.”

I confess to ambivalence. I deeply admire the other kind of aid workers, those whose passion for their work is evident by the fact that they’ve gone broke doing it. I’m filled with awe when I go to a place like Darfur and see unpaid or underpaid aid workers in groups like Doctors Without Borders, risking their lives to patch up the victims of genocide.

I also worry that if aid groups paid executives as lavishly as Citigroup, they would be managed as badly as Citigroup.

Yet there’s a broad recognition in much of the aid community that a major rethink is necessary, that groups would be more effective if they borrowed more tools from the business world, and that there is too much “gotcha” scrutiny on overhead rather than on what they actually accomplish. It’s notable that leaders of Oxfam and Save the Children have publicly endorsed the book, and it’s certainly becoming more socially acceptable to note that businesses can also play a powerful role in fighting poverty.

“Howard Schultz has done more for coffee-growing regions of Africa than anybody I can think of,” Michael Fairbanks, a development expert, said of the chief executive of Starbucks. By helping countries improve their coffee-growing practices and brand their coffees, Starbucks has probably helped impoverished African coffee farmers more than any aid group has.

Mr. Fairbanks himself demonstrates that a businessman can do good even as he does well. Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, hired Mr. Fairbanks’s consulting company and paid it millions of dollars between 2000 and 2007.

In turn, Mr. Fairbanks helped Rwanda market its coffee, tea and gorillas. Rwandan coffee now retails for up to $55 a pound in Manhattan, wages in the Rwandan coffee sector have soared up to eight-fold, and zillionaires stumble through the Rwandan jungle to admire the wildlife.

President Kagame thanked Mr. Fairbanks by granting him Rwandan citizenship.

There are lots of saintly aid workers in Rwanda, including the heroic Dr. Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, and they do extraordinary work. But sometimes, so do the suits. Isaac Durojaiye, a Nigerian businessman, is an example of the way the line is beginning to blur between businesses and charities. He runs a for-profit franchise business that provides fee-for-use public toilets in Nigeria. When he started, there was one public toilet in Nigeria for every 200,000 people, but by charging, he has been able to provide basic sanitation to far more people than any aid group.

In the war on poverty, there is room for all kinds of organizations. Mr. Pallotta may be right that by frowning on aid groups that pay high salaries, advertise extensively and even turn a profit, we end up hurting the world’s neediest.

“People continue to die as a result,” he says bluntly. “This we call morality.”

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

连美国都要改革了!

汤母斯费里曼(THOMAS FRIEDMAN)在他的专栏谈到了美国落后的机场、火车上大手机中断、简陋的设备等,他认为金融风暴为美国带来改革的契机。

December 24, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Time to Reboot America
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I had a bad day last Friday, but it was an all-too-typical day for America.

It actually started well, on Kau Sai Chau, an island off Hong Kong, where I stood on a rocky hilltop overlooking the South China Sea and talked to my wife back in Maryland, static-free, using a friend’s Chinese cellphone. A few hours later, I took off from Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train — with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop.

Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I’ve argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn’t we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As I looked around at this dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had been before. Then I remembered: It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport. It closed in 1998.

The next day I went to Penn Station, where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented. The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II. I took the Acela, America’s sorry excuse for a bullet train, from New York to Washington. Along the way, I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span.

All I could think to myself was: If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us? What has become of our infrastructure, which is so crucial to productivity? Back home, I was greeted by the news that General Motors was being bailed out — that’s the G.M. that Fortune magazine just noted “lost more than $72 billion in the past four years, and yet you can count on one hand the number of executives who have been reassigned or lost their job.”
My fellow Americans, we can’t continue in this mode of “Dumb as we wanna be.” We’ve indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can’t afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world’s best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.

To top it off, we’ve fallen into a trend of diverting and rewarding the best of our collective I.Q. to people doing financial engineering rather than real engineering. These rocket scientists and engineers were designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money — rather than designing cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions.

For all these reasons, our present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection. We are in much deeper trouble. In fact, we as a country have become General Motors — as a result of our national drift. Look in the mirror: G.M. is us.

That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.

It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants. Generally, I’d like to see fewer government dollars shoveled out and more creative tax incentives to stimulate the private sector to catalyze new industries and new markets. If we allow this money to be spent on pork, it will be the end of us.

America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society — in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. China may have great airports, but last week it went back to censoring The New York Times and other Western news sites. Censorship restricts your people’s imaginations. That’s really, really dumb. And that’s why for all our missteps, the 21st century is still up for grabs.

John Kennedy led us on a journey to discover the moon. Obama needs to lead us on a journey to rediscover, rebuild and reinvent our own backyard.

Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 19, 2008

香港V大马石油价格

最近到香港去,倪震的“偷吃”和亚洲电视王维基都是头条新闻。

但是,还有一条新闻吸引我的关注,那就是香港的石油价格。一周刊和星岛日报都有评论为什么该地的价格没有随着世界油价的下降而下降。其中有谈到的是香港是自由贸易体制,政府对价格是管不了的。香港油价居高不下的其中一个原因是该地油站的租金都很高。

有趣的是星岛日报评论中谈到我国的油价,说政府跟随世界油价的下降而先后几次调低油价。言语中似乎在羡慕大马的消费人。

Friday, December 12, 2008

香烟盒子上骇人的图片有效吗?

卫生部已经决定要在所有香烟盒上印上骇人的病重图片作为反吸烟运动的另外一项重点宣传。

但是,最近在纽约时报的一篇OP-ED却带来不同的讯息。

December 12, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor

Inhaling Fear
By MARTIN LINDSTROM
Sydney, Australia

TEN years ago, in settling the largest civil lawsuit in American history, Big Tobacco agreed to pay the 50 states $246 billion, which they’ve used in part to finance efforts to prevent smoking. The percentage of American adults who smoke has fallen since then to just over 20 percent from nearly 30 percent, but smoking is still the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the United States, and smoking-related health care costs more than $167 billion a year.

To reduce this cost, the incoming Obama administration should abandon one antismoking strategy that isn’t working.

A key component of the Food and Drug Administration’s approach to smoking prevention is to warn about health dangers: Smoking causes fatal lung cancer; smoking causes emphysema; smoking while pregnant causes birth defects. Compared with warnings issued by other nations, these statements are low-key. From Canada to Thailand, Australia to Brazil, warnings on cigarette packs include vivid images of lung tumors, limbs turned gangrenous by peripheral vascular disease and open sores and deteriorating teeth caused by mouth and throat cancers. In October, Britain became the first European country to require similar gruesome images on packaging.

But such warnings don’t work. Worldwide, people continue to inhale 5.7 trillion cigarettes annually — a figure that doesn’t even take into account duty-free or black-market cigarettes. According to World Bank projections, the number of smokers is expected to reach 1.6 billion by 2025, from the current 1.3 billion.

A brain-imaging experiment I conducted in 2006 explains why antismoking scare tactics have been so futile. I examined people’s brain activity as they reacted to cigarette warning labels by using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a scanning technique that can show how much oxygen and glucose a particular area of the brain uses while it works, allowing us to observe which specific regions are active at any given time.

We tested 32 people (from Britain, China, Germany, Japan and the United States), some of whom were social smokers and some of whom were two-pack-a-day addicts. Most of these subjects reported that cigarette warning labels reduced their craving for a cigarette, but their brains told us a different story.

Each subject lay in the scanner for about an hour while we projected on a small screen a series of cigarette package labels from various countries — including statements like “smoking kills” and “smoking causes fatal lung cancers.” We found that the warnings prompted no blood flow to the amygdala, the part of the brain that registers alarm, or to the part of the cortex that would be involved in any effort to register disapproval.

To the contrary, the warning labels backfired: they stimulated the nucleus accumbens, sometimes called the “craving spot,” which lights up on f.M.R.I. whenever a person craves something, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, tobacco or gambling.

Further investigation is needed, but our study has already revealed an unintended consequence of antismoking health warnings. They appear to work mainly as a marketing tool to keep smokers smoking.

Barack Obama has said he’s been using nicotine gum to fight his own cigarette habit. His new administration can help other smokers quit, too, by eliminating the government scare tactics that only increase people’s craving.

Martin Lindstrom is the author of “Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy.”

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

马华槟州联委会新闻局文告

反驳及严厉谴责慕克里单一教育政策的建议

(槟城讯) 马华槟州联委会新闻局主任兼槟州马华发言人陈显裕律师今天针对巫青团执委拿督慕克里建议政府废除华文与淡米尔文源流学校,从而落实单一教育政策的建议提出严厉的批评。

马华槟州联委会认为慕克里的建议,充其量只是巫统党选来临之际,一些极端政客的不负责任言论。这些政客,仍然没有办法跳出落伍思想的旧框框。

更令人感到遗憾的是慕克里竟然把华小、淡小的存在硬生生的套在“马来主权”议题上。其实,华小、淡小的存在根本和“马来主权”的议题没有任何关系。

相反的,身为国会议员的慕克里应该知道,从独立到现在,国内的华小已经造就了数十万的马来裔和印裔学生。到了今天,在任何一刻,国内共有超过六万名马来裔和印裔学生正在华小就读。

马华槟州联委会根本看不出慕克里的逻辑思维,唯一可以解释的是他本身为了党选而不惜发出极端言论。“我们要奉劝慕克里,不要为了赢党选而到了最后却输了大选”。

马华槟州联委会坚信华小在我国的地位将永垂不朽,同时也将会更加的发扬光大。华小贡献、价值绝对不会因为不负责任政客的言论而受损。

在这方面,马华槟州联委会必须重复最近国阵和中央政府所达至的协议,那就是政府的拨款将直接拨给华小的董事会,让政府公款可以在善用的原则下,取得更高和实质的效益。单单这一点就足以证明中央政府认同,甚至肯定华小的功能和存在价值。


2.12.2008

马华槟州联委会新闻局发.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

马华槟州联委会成立了

州主席中莱在今天(30日)公布了槟州联委会的名单,在这之前报章一再猜测高票中选的清凉将会被委任为州的暑理主席。

当然,在这之前也是传媒报道说她出任暑理主席会面对阻碍。

出乎意料,马青团长协文被委以重任,担任州的暑理主席,一夜之间成名。协文,你任重而道远,要努力完成任务。

但是,有一点要特别赞扬中莱的是他的联委会排阵成功的获得州内13个区会的头头的点头。记者会过后大伙移到CORNER‘S CLUB吃午餐时,政治秘书伟豪说:“已经很久没有看到州内13个区会的领袖坐在一起,有说有笑的吃饭。”

我想这是好的开始。至少,让这个全新的阵容一个一年的机会,希望马华槟州重新振作!

Today , MCA Penang Chairman ,Dato’ Liow announced the state liaison committee new line-up.

It has been widely speculated and reported in the media that MCA cc member , Tan Cheng Liang would be appointed the deputy chairman post.

Of course , there were also reports saying that Tan Cheng Liang may face objections from her own comrades.

True enough , MCA Youth Section head , Eng Hiap Boon , 40 , was given the heavy task of state deputy chairman. This is a big surprise!

I have to salute my Chariman , Dato' Liow for his wisdom and ability to convince the heads of all the 13 divisions to accept the line-up proposed by him.

After the press conference , the whole lot of us adjourned for lunch at Corner's Club. Wei Hao told me that :" For the past so many years , he has not seen MCA Penang divison leaders sitting together to have lunch ,this is the 1st time after so long".

Obviously , this is a good sign.

Let's give a time frame of one year for this new team.

Dear comrades , please give your support to this new team.

Friday, November 28, 2008

虚张声势

成语虚张声势的最新注解应该是安华的“916变天”。

最近,人民公正党署理主席赛胡先阿里认为,民联变天失败的教训,是因为说大多。其实,不是说太多,根本就是在敲锣打鼓,虚张声势!

“916变天”的闹剧根本就是假民主之名在行骗。

很多人看到近几天泰国发生的示威者占据机场,严重破坏泰国的经济,特别是旅游业时,都在内心严厉的谴责这些示威者不尊重民主。泰国的政府是通过票箱选出来的,为什么示威者不能让这个民选政府好好的执政,如果做不好,来届大选再换政府。

同样的,308大选,人民通过选票,选出中央政府、州政府之后,就应该让中央和州政府去履行竞选诺言,四五年后,再向人民展示政绩,再来一次公平竞争。这就是民主的基本精神。

不客气的说,“916变天”论和泰国的示威者占据机场,严重破坏国家经济都是同出一辙,应该受到严厉的谴责!

槟州路牌

我以马华中委的名誉发表文告,痛批槟州政府企图通过多语文路牌,小题大作,博取宣传。

的确,在公在私,我们都应该支持多语路牌。但是,请不要以此来搞民粹,投机取巧。搞旅游业要扎实的功夫,绝非三几块多语路牌就可以交差了事。

就以已经停飞的槟城厦门的直航来说,厦航从2005开始直航,不到两年,亏了将近千万元。道理很简单,客源太少了,当时的情形是从槟城去厦门的本地游客还好,但是从中国来槟的游客却不多,因为槟城没什么好玩。

最近,在槟夏友好协会的六周年宴会,林冠英又旧事重提,要中方研究重新开航,槟夏直航。但是,从今天28日的报导,中方已经表示困难重重,客源不足,亏本生意没有人要做。

民联政府的逻辑是:多语路牌挂上去了,游客就应该滚滚而来吧!其他扎实功夫不须要做了!

奉劝民联政府,脚踏实地,搞经济,要扎实,不能投机取巧,绝非三几块路牌就可以蒙骗过去的。

写到这里,应该提到在刚过去的州议会,林冠英的第一份槟州财政预算案,并没有为槟州在2009年即将面对的金融海啸做好准备,槟城就等着瞧吧。

Saturday, November 22, 2008

政治就是这样 - 不要自鸣清高

台湾当局为了提高人民的消费意愿,决定发出每个人三千六百新台币的消费券,让人民在明年一月消费。

马英九总统被问到要如何用这份消费券时,说:“我的消费券将捐作慈善”。

总统这样的回答遭到批评,认为是呆板,没有创意。更严重的是,大家认为消费券是全民话题,全民运动,身为总统的怎么这么不解风情,太扫兴了!这是与民同乐,共同“血拼”的时候,总统怎么是自鸣清高,和人民显得格格不入?

的确,作为政治人物,特别是居高职位者,要紧记着时时刻刻“好像被看到和人民在一起”!

Friday, November 21, 2008

候任者的困境

美国总统选举尘埃落定,但是PRESIDENT ELECT候任总统却须要等到明年一月20日才宣誓就职。

美国目前处在超级困境,而世界其他国家也因为美国而同样的处在这超级困境中。每个国家在“等和看”美国的行动。比如说美国推出七千亿美元的救市行动,其他国家纷纷效尤。

问题是美国的金融大海啸的确太大、太大了。在非常时期须要非常手段。然而,处于新旧总统交接期,是属于“跛脚鸭”政府状态,很难有什么惊人之举,也不会有大破大立的动作。

PAUL KRUGMAN就在他的专栏提到了这点:-

November 21, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Lame-Duck Economy
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Everyone’s talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters’ minds, both discredited the G.O.P.’s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.

There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 — namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now.

It’s true that the interregnum will be shorter this time: F.D.R. wasn’t inaugurated until March; Barack Obama will move into the White House on Jan. 20. But crises move faster these days.
How much can go wrong in the two months before Mr. Obama takes the oath of office? The answer, unfortunately, is: a lot. Consider how much darker the economic picture has grown since the failure of Lehman Brothers, which took place just over two months ago. And the pace of deterioration seems to be accelerating.

Most obviously, we’re in the midst of the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression: the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has now fallen more than 50 percent from its peak. Other indicators are arguably even more disturbing: unemployment claims are surging, manufacturing production is plunging, interest rates on corporate bonds — which reflect investor fears of default — are soaring, which will almost surely lead to a sharp fall in business spending. The prospects for the economy look much grimmer now than they did as little as a week or two ago.

Yet economic policy, rather than responding to the threat, seems to have gone on vacation. In particular, panic has returned to the credit markets, yet no new rescue plan is in sight. On the contrary, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, has announced that he won’t even go back to Congress for the second half of the $700 billion already approved for financial bailouts. And financial aid for the beleaguered auto industry is being stalled by a political standoff.

How much should we worry about what looks like two months of policy drift? At minimum, the next two months will inflict serious pain on hundreds of thousands of Americans, who will lose their jobs, their homes, or both. What’s really troubling, however, is the possibility that some of the damage being done right now will be irreversible. I’m concerned, in particular, about the two D’s: deflation and Detroit.

About deflation: Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s taught economists that it’s very hard to get the economy moving once expectations of inflation get too low (it doesn’t matter whether people literally expect prices to fall). Yet there’s clear deflationary pressure on the U.S. economy right now, and every month that passes without signs of recovery increases the odds that we’ll find ourselves stuck in a Japan-type trap for years.

About Detroit: There’s now a real risk that, in the absence of quick federal aid, the Big Three automakers and their network of suppliers will be forced into liquidation — that is, forced to shut down, lay off all their workers and sell off their assets. And if that happens, it will be very hard to bring them back.

Now, maybe letting the auto companies die is the right decision, even though an auto industry collapse would be a huge blow to an already slumping economy. But it’s a decision that should be taken carefully, with full consideration of the costs and benefits — not a decision taken by default, because of a political standoff between Democrats who want Mr. Paulson to use some of that $700 billion and a lame-duck administration that’s trying to force Congress to divert funds from a fuel-efficiency program instead.

Is economic policy completely paralyzed between now and Jan. 20? No, not completely. Some useful actions are being taken. For example, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lending agencies, have taken the helpful step of declaring a temporary halt to foreclosures, while Congress has passed a badly needed extension of unemployment benefits now that the White House has dropped its opposition.

But nothing is happening on the policy front that is remotely commensurate with the scale of the economic crisis. And it’s scary to think how much more can go wrong before Inauguration Day.

其实,上面提到的情形同样的发生在大马。新首相必须等到明年三月28日才正式上任。而在这段时期,可以说一“政策空白期”,我们不敢祈望有什么大动作,一切将是“照常如仪”。

当然,大马的情形可能更严重,除了交接期太长之外,巫统暑理主席之争将会带来很多的后遗症。这是大马的不幸!

Monday, November 17, 2008

老蔡执行任务了

很高兴看到蔡细历终于开始执行"政府政策监督局"的任务了。

他先前针对党中央人事安排发飙,让广大党员忧心忡忡,大家都在担心党争真的会来。

其实,正如蔡细历自己所说的,他所负责的这个局在家定担任总会长时就被委任。可惜,在那个时候这个局的活动很少曝光,党员也不清楚到底有没有执行任务,大家几乎忘记了有这样的一个局。我想应该是当时任部长的细历太忙了,没有时间监督政府的政策。

当然,有一点要提到的,基于“内阁共同负责的原则”,要一位部长去进行监督政府政策是行不通的。一切政策的讨论、执行都要在内阁进行,部长不可以在内阁内保持沉默,出来之后再“说三道四”!

值得一提的是,老蔡在记者会上说 : 若有官職在身,他肯定能更有效地執行工作和解決課題。

看来,老蔡还是“官职是万灵丹”!

对了,也要提醒老蔡,不要忘记监督民联政府的施政,对内也要对外!

Thursday, November 13, 2008

老蔡发飙了?

马华总会长公布中委各项人事安排不到24小时,蔡细历终于沉不住气,通过传媒发飙了。

他发鳔的整个中心点就是“部长”一职。

哎,再次的赤裸裸的暴露出一些人参政的最终目的。

马华目前已经背负着巫统无恶不做的政治包袱了,而最近巫统党选的金钱政治看了更是令人发指。由于党选要到明年3月才举行,而老二一职又是空气的三角战,可以意料的是接下来还会有很多的“种族极端”言论。马华诸公可要等着接下更多的包袱了。

老蔡如果真的如其所愿的被委担任部长,马华、国阵将面对另外一些沉重的包袱:

1)一,历史上,也是世界上第一位“VCD”部长次;

2)二,国阵也不能只委任老蔡做部长,其他成员党好像MIC 、 GERAKAN 、 PPP 等头头都在等部长做,那么,一下可热闹了,国阵政府将会是最多通过走后门出任部长的政府了。

哈哈,这些包袱就让大家一起来扛吧!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

反对霸市

威省,特别是大山脚一带的小商家、小贩商这几个月来都感受到生意量少了很多,市面行情固然不好,影响生意,但是,霸市林立更是一大威胁。

对于霸市,特别是资本雄厚的外资,对于我国的DISTRIBUTIVE TRADE的确会带来很大的影响,这个影响不是一朝一夕可以见到,而是在中长期。更重要的,如果任由霸市毫无节制的成立,华人在传统零售业、批发业,甚至是制造业在长期经营的优势将会崩溃。

或许有些人还记得在70/80年代初,当NEP在如火如荼的执行时,政府就发现到马来商家在零售业,五金业根本不能立足。原因是整个销售网络,从生产、批发到零售都是华人商家在做,一般马来人要打入这个网络是难如登天。其实,这种情形就好象印度人在MONEY CHANGER 和收买二手货市场的优势一样。

这样的优势当然不是从天而降,是这些商家经过长期经营,刻苦得来的。

在70/80年代,政府为了协助马来人打入这个网络,就成立了PERNAS TRADING,扮演批发的角色,希望可以通过PERNAS TRADING的官方优势来打破这个网络。当然,正如多数的政府的计划,PERNAS TRADING到了最后也没有什么成功。

但是,外资霸市的到来却是对这个网络带来了很大的冲击,如果没有良策来阻挡这股攻势,相信不出10年,这个华人先贤这么多年来的优势将会一蹶不振了。

这些外资到来本地,其实也不必带来太大的本钱,他们靠着母公司响当当的名字,就可以向银行借钱做生意。还有,本地厂商,特别是中小型的厂商,为了让产品可以在霸市上摆卖,账期可要特别通融。

外资霸市的策略很简单,只要用上三五年的时间,把本地传统零售商打得落花流水,这一层的销售网络一除之后,华人的批发业也跟着倒,剩下来的中小型厂家,要把产品推出市场就只有靠霸市了。试想想,华人厂家今后是不是要看外资的脸色做生意了吗?

自从NEP实行以来,华人在我国的经济地位每况愈下,策略性的经济领域根本就沾不上,而我们仅存的优势是在零售业,五金行业,特别是这两个行业长期的销售网络。当然,最后一项是建筑和房屋发展业。

因此,大家应该严正的看待霸市对华人经济所带来的冲击。

Friday, October 24, 2008

原来美国总统大选是在拜二

读到了纽约时报的OPED评论才知道从1845年开始,美国总统选举是订在拜二举行的。

那时候是为了方便农民的作息而订在拜二举行,经过了150年,美国人民的作息已经有很大的改变了,因此,有人建议把选举订在拜六或是礼拜。

也许是因为这样,贵为世界民主先进国,美国选民的出席率竟然是比其他国家还要低的。

Everybody’s Voting for the Weekend

By STEVE ISRAEL and NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN

Washington

BY Nov. 4, more than $5 billion will have been spent trying to persuade voters to cast their presidential and congressional ballots one way or another. Despite all the money and the news media hysteria, and even with record numbers of Americans heading to the polls, the United States won’t even come close to the top nations in the world for voter turnout. We will be well behind — to name just a few — Iceland, Sweden and New Zealand.

What do those countries, among many others, have in common? Their citizens all vote on a weekend day. But in the United States, for more than 150 years, we’ve voted on Tuesday. Why? It’s not in the Constitution. It isn’t to avoid holidays. And it’s not because people hate Mondays.
The reason we vote on Tuesday makes perfect sense — at least it did in 1845.

To understand the decision Congress made that year, let’s imagine ourselves as members of early agrarian American society. Saturday was for farming, Sunday was the Lord’s day, Monday was required for travel to the county seat where the polling places were, Tuesday you voted, Wednesday you returned home, and Thursday it was back to work.

It’s a safe bet that today most Americans don’t follow the same schedule as our farming forefathers. In fact, for many, Tuesday is one of the most inconvenient days to hold an election. One in four people who didn’t vote in 2006 said that they were “too busy” or had “conflicting work or school schedules.”

Legislation now before Congress would finally tailor our voting system to modern American life by establishing weekend voting for national elections. (Mr. Israel is sponsoring the bill in the House.) Here’s how it would work: The presidential election would be held on the Saturday and Sunday after the first Friday in November, while for those who aren’t often home on the weekends, there would be a few days of early voting.

Our current system penalizes single parents, people working two jobs, and those who have to choose between getting a paycheck and casting a ballot. Two weekend days of voting means those working families would have a greater chance of making it to the polls. It means easing the long lines during rush hour at the polling sites. It means more locations, more poll workers and more voters.

Some have suggested making Election Day a holiday, but that would involve a serious cost to the economy. Moving Election Day to the weekend means more convenience and less expense.

Making a change like this won’t be easy, but it’s not unprecedented. In 1968, Congress passed the Monday Holiday law, which moved Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day and Washington’s Birthday from their original dates to Mondays. If we can alter our federal holidays to benefit shoppers and travelers, surely we can change Election Day for the benefit of our voters.

Let’s take a cue from the Congress of 1845 and ensure that voting is available to as many working Americans as possible — not just those who can make it to the polls on a Tuesday.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

大马真的同世界隔绝吗?

金融大海啸的发展、蔓延、骨排效应(DOMINO EFFECT)还在燃烧中,很多人也相信会越烧越大。

但是,也只有我国的领导人声称大马不会受影响,仿佛我们是关起门来做生意的。

《世界是平》这本书的作者THOMAS FRIEDMAN在纽约时报的专栏就以冰岛发生的银行倒闭时间来告诉大家,世界上每个国家都是连接在一起,大家都是PARTNERS,金融海啸来时没有一个国家可以幸免的。

英国的大学、地方政府、慈善机构等为了获得更高的利息收入而把钱存在冰岛的银行,这些银行再把钱拿去投资在各种“创意产品”,结果海啸一来,血本无归。

The Great Iceland Meltdown
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Who knew? Who knew that Iceland was just a hedge fund with glaciers? Who knew?

If you’re looking for a single example of how the globalization of finance helped get us into this mess and how it will help get us out, you need look no further than British newspapers last week and their front-page articles about the number of British citizens, municipalities and universities — including Cambridge — that are in a tizzy today because they had savings parked in Icelandic banks, through online banking services like Icesave.co.uk.

As Dave Barry would say, I’m not makin’ this up.

When I went to the Icesave Web site to see what it was all about, the headline read: “Simple, transparent and consistently high-rate online savings accounts from Icesave.” But then, underneath in blue letters, I found the following note appended: “We are not currently processing any deposits or any withdrawal requests through our Icesave Internet accounts. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers.”

Any “inconvenience?” When you can’t withdraw savings from an online bank in Iceland, that is more than an inconvenience! That’s a reason for total panic.

So what’s the story? Around 2002, Iceland began to free its banks from state ownership. According to The Wall Street Journal, the three banks that make up almost the entire banking system in Iceland “grew quickly on easy credit” and “their combined assets rose tenfold in five years.” The Icelandic banks, while not invested in U.S. subprime mortgages, had gone on their own borrowing and lending binges, wooing savers from across Europe with 5.45 percent interest savings accounts.

In a flat world, money can easily seek out the highest returns, and when word got around about Iceland, deposits poured in from Britain — some $1.8 billion. Unfortunately, though, when global credit markets closed up, and the krona fell, “the Icelandic banks were unable to finance their debts, many of which were denominated in foreign currencies,” The Times reported. When depositors rushed to get their money out, the Icelandic banking system had too little reserves to cover withdrawals, so all three banks melted down and were nationalized.

It turns out that more than 120 British municipal governments, as well as universities, hospitals and charities had deposits stranded in blocked Icelandic bank accounts. Cambridge alone had about $20 million, while 15 British police forces — from towns like Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Lancashire — had roughly $170 million frozen in Iceland, The Telegraph reported. Even the bobbies were banking in Iceland!

So think about it: Some mortgage broker in Los Angeles gives subprime “liar loans” to people who have no credit ratings so they can buy homes in Southern California. Those flimsy mortgages get globalized through the global banking system and, when they go sour, they eventually prompt banks to stop lending, fearful that every other bank’s assets are toxic, too.

The credit crunch hits Iceland, which went on its own binge. Meanwhile, the police department of Northumbria, England, had invested some of its extra cash in Iceland, and, now that those accounts are frozen, it may have to reduce street patrols this weekend.

And therein lies the central truth of globalization today: We’re all connected and nobody is in charge.

Globalization giveth — it was this democratization of finance that helped to power the global growth that lifted so many in India, China and Brazil out of poverty in recent decades. Globalization now taketh away — it was this democratization of finance that enabled the U.S. to infect the rest of the world with its toxic mortgages. And now, we have to hope, that globalization will saveth.

The real and sustained bailout from the crisis will happen when the strong companies buy the weak ones — on a global basis. It’s starting. Last week, Credit Suisse declined a Swiss government bailout and instead raised fresh capital from Qatar, the Olayan family of Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Koor Industries. Japan’s Mitsubishi bank bought a stake in Morgan Stanley, possibly rescuing it from bankruptcy and preventing an even steeper decline in the Dow. And Spain’s Banco Santander, which was spared from the worst of this credit crisis by Spain’s conservative banking regulations, is purchasing America’s Sovereign Bankcorp.

I suspect we will soon see the same happening in industry. And, once the smoke clears, I suspect we will find ourselves living in a world of globalization on steroids — a world in which key global economies are more intimately tied together than ever before.

It will be a world in which America will not be able to scratch its ear, let alone roll over in bed, without thinking about the impact on other countries and economies. And it will be a world in which multilateral diplomacy and regulation will no longer be a choice. It will be a reality and a
necessity. We are all partners now.

Monday, October 13, 2008

以债养债

美国金融风暴让人们看到了原来好吃懒做、尽情消费、债台高筑的后果可以由世界其他国家来“埋单”,今天中国人几十年来的勤奋工作,累计的大笔储备金,买了美国的债券,成为债权人,结果到头来是吃大亏,现在还要另外拿出资金来救美国,中国人真得是上辈子欠了美国人。

南方朔说这是“债务隧道”!

大家或许应该问问看到底我们的EPF是否也不小心的走进了这个债务隧道?美国的金融产品的中介人(BROKERS)是无孔不入的,哪里有钱,他们就会看上你,我们的EPF钱多多,这些中介人相信也注意到吧!就让我们拭目以待,看看EPF是否中箭落马!


南方朔觀點─「債務隧道」深深深幾許!


在過去一個月裡,全球政府投入救市的金額早已逾兆美元,但整個市場卻彷彿像黑洞般讓這些龐大的金額悄悄的消失無蹤,而且似乎並沒有帶動出多少漣漪。於是人們不禁想問:救市到底要幾兆才夠?世界到底發生了甚麼事?
 
而這些難題似乎並沒有人知道答案。用當今專業圈裡的說法,那就是在全球的「債務隧道」裡到底隱藏著多少虧損及負債,它的總額仍無人知悉。「國際貨幣基金」夠權威了,四月份它估計為○點九四兆美元,九月估計一兆三千億美元,十月估計一兆四千億美元,它仍在且戰且走的看情況向上修正中。這種情況就像去年次貸風暴初現時,美國聯準會根本不以為意,認為它只是四、五百億元即可打發的小問題,但與時推移,才發現次貸的「債務隧道」深不見底,到了今年六月「國際貨幣基金」才估計稱高達○點九七兆。而到了今天,次貸問題早已被包裹進了更大的金融海嘯裡。由上述變化,探索這個「債務隧道」,或許才是重點。
 
根據法國會計金融專家佛隆(Nicolas Veron)及其同僚的近著《一家煙火公司的故事:資本主義的會計詐欺》,我們已知道近十年來,所謂的「創造性的會計」當道,它透過種種「會計詐欺」(Accounting shenanigans)將虧損在全球隱藏,而後炮製出盈餘並因此而發展出各種衍生性金融商品,在金融市場獲利。股神巴菲特早在二○○五年六月在致他公司股東的公開信裡就已明言;「衍生性金融商品,已成了全球金融的大規模毀滅性武器。」
 
而當今美國主要金融評論家摩理士(Charles R.Morris)在剛出版的《億兆美元融解:便宜錢、高滾輪,信用大崩盤》裡更詳盡的將當今有如迷宮般的借貸市場,以及每種負債又被包裹成種種衍生性金融商品如CDO.CDS.CMBS…等做了細部探討。其中CDO方面估計至少十五兆美元, CDS至少四十五兆美元,加上種種其他擴散效應,整個金融名目資產高達五百兆美元。將債務透過層層包裝而變成可販賣的資產,在說法上是將債務的風險分攤轉移,但在操作上,則等於是將別人及他國拉來成為自己債務的最後墊背者。這也就是說,在各種衍生性商品裡,具有風險保險契約性質的CDS最可怕的原因。新興經濟體如巴基斯坦、土耳其、阿拉伯聯合大公國等介入較深的國家,都將中箭落馬。
 
因此,全球救市究竟要多少兆美元才足以支撐出它的底部?答案可能根本沒有人知道。冰島小國寡民,人口才卅萬,金融結構也最單純,因此它在全球「債務隧道」裡曝險的程度才得以最先得以透明化;它的債務居然高達總生產毛額的九倍以上。冰島國家破產,不是特例,而是具體而微的縮影。全球不知還有多少國家躲藏在「債務隧道」裡!
 
華爾街、美國三大信評公司、五大會計師公司(現只剩四家)在過去十年裡合奏出全球最大的金融泡沫進行曲,而今泡沫破裂,仍由出身「高盛」執行長的財長鮑爾森率班底救市。由美國救市策略的一再調整,它企圖穩定關鍵銀行,進而為股市築底。美國股市裡,佔最大比例的乃是聯邦、各州和地方,及私人退休基金,總額在十兆美元以上,目前這些退休基金至少己虧損二兆美元,若再惡化,難保不引發更大的社會政治風暴。
 
只是「債務隧道」深不可測,近來美國動作頻頻,期盼擁有龐大主權財富基金的新興經濟體如中國、沙烏地等協助築底,但面對這樣的「債務隧道」,誰不惴惴難安?這乃是中國大陸至今仍舉棋不定的原因。
 
全球由次貸風暴而升高到金融危機,最後深化為金融海嘯,而其影響面,則由虛擬經濟終於將傷害落實到實體經濟上。目前歐洲已進入衰退,美國則從今年第三季起也將進入衰退,最保守的估計,不到明年第三季,將難有復原的可能。連帶的,全球貿易銳減,失業大增等病灶也將一一浮現。就整體結構而言,全球將因此進入一個痛苦的「美元時代的終結」的調整期。這個問題很快就會出現。如何面對全球金融債務可能擴大,經濟即將大幅衰退,以及金融秩序可能重整,或許才是台灣在救市的同時必須未雨綢繆的嚴肅課題!

了解美国金融海啸

美国引爆的金融海啸,蔓延到世界各地,(奇怪,好像只有大马不受影响,首相、第一、第二财长先后放话,要国人放心,大马经济还强,可以经得起海啸)。

对于人来说,我们还是一再追问,到底是什么问题造成美国金融海啸?Please read this good article。

The Crisis's Silver Lining by Fareed Zakaria

Amid the financial chaos and economic uncertainty that has rocked worldmarkets, I can see one silver lining. This crisis has forced the UnitedStates to confront the bad habits it developed over the past few decades.If we can kick those habits, today's pain will translate into gains in thelong run.

Since the 1980s, Americans have consumed more than they produced and havemade up the difference by borrowing. Two decades of easy money andinnovative financial products meant that virtually anyone could borrow anyamount for any purpose. Household debt ballooned from $680 billion in 1974to $14 trillion today. The average household has 13 credit cards, and 40percent of these carry a balance, up from 6 percent in 1970.

But the average American's behavior was virtuous compared with governmentbehavior. Every city, county and state has wanted to preserve itsproliferating operations yet not raise taxes. How to square this circle? Byborrowing, using ever more elaborate financial instruments.
Local pols weren't the only problem. Under Alan Greenspan, the FederalReserve refused to inflict pain. Russian default? Cut interest rates. Theeconomic slowdown after Sept. 11? Cut rates. Whatever the problem, thesolution was to keep money flowing and goose the economy.
In 1990, the national debt was $3 trillion. It is now $10.2 trillion.

If there is a lesson to be taken from this crisis, it's an old rule:There is no free lunch. Now, debt is not a bad thing. Used responsibly, itis at the heart of modern capitalism. But hiding mountains of debt incomplex instruments is an invitation to irresponsible behavior.

In the short term, governments must take on more debts and obligations toresolve the crisis. But that doesn't mean we should stimulate the economywith more tax cuts, as some economists advocate. That would only keep theparty going artificially. A far better stimulus would be to expedite majorinfrastructure and energy projects, which are investments, not consumption,and have a different effect on fiscal fortunes.

In the longer term, we have to get back to basics. Government should putincentives in place that make saving more likely. The U.S. governmentoffers enormous incentives to consume (the mortgage interest tax deductionbeing the best example), and it works. We have the world's biggest housesand the most cars. If we were to tax consumption and encourage savings,that would also work. Regulations on credit card debt should be revised toensure that people understand their risks.

Paul Volcker has long argued that the recent financial innovation simplyshuffled around existing resources while contributing few real benefits tothe economy. Such activity will now be reduced significantly. Boykin Curry,a New York fund manager, points out that "30 percent of S&P 500 profitslast year were earned by financial firms, and U.S. consumers were spending$800 billion more than they earned every year. As a result, most of our topmath PhDs were being pulled into nonproductive financial engineeringinstead of biotech research and fuel technology. Capital expenditures wentinto retail construction instead of critical infrastructure." The crisiswill stop the misallocation of human and financial resources and redirectthem in more productive ways. If some of the smart people on Wall Streetend up building better models of energy usage and efficiency, that would bea net gain for the economy.

The U.S. economy remains extremely dynamic. Even now, the most surprisingdata continue to be how resilient the economy has been through the recentshocks. That will not last if the panic persists, but the economy'sunderlying virtues would help it recover quickly from a recession. The risein emerging-market economies, which have been powering global growth, willnot vanish overnight, either.

In the short run, there has been a flight to safety -- toward dollars andTreasury bills -- but in the long run, countries are likely to seek greaterindependence from an unstable superpower. The United States will have towork to attract capital and must organize its fiscal affairs. We will haveto make strategic choices. We cannot deploy missile interceptors alongRussia's borders, draw Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and still expectRussian cooperation on Iran's nuclear program. We cannot denounce Chineseand Arab investments here and the next day hope that they will keep buyingT-bills. We cannot keep preaching about democracy and capitalism with ourown house so wildly out of order. Instilling discipline will be painful fora country used to having it all. But it will make us much stronger in thelong run.

The writer is editor of Newsweek International and co-host of PostGlobal,an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address iscomments@fareedzakaria.com.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

轻重 缓急

九月份在内部安全法令下被捉的三个人中,只剩下RAJAPETRA一人还被扣留,其他两位都被释放了。

我们时常听到说马华在这件事件上争取释放记者,对其他两位似乎是抱着“不关心”的态度。我想在事件一开始时的几个小时里面,全部的注意力的确是集中在争取释放记者。

显然大家都对政府引用有关恶法觉得很可耻,也觉得是太无辜了,而在三位被扣留者当中,不可否认的是记者是当中“最、最、最”无辜的,也是最引起公愤的。

以当时的情形,相信大家都会同意要争取第一时间同时释放三个人是“不可能的任务”,更重要的是如果把他们三个人“绑在一起处理”,可能会弄巧成拙。

因此,当大家指责马华时,请要了解,在处理这棘手事件上,要分“轻重、缓急”,要争取第一时间把“最、最、最”无辜者释放。至少,这个目标已经达到了。

其实,在整个事件上,更有两件可耻事情:-

1)AHMAD ISMAIL 看来是逍遥法外了;
2)前反对党领袖对马华无理的指控,至今死不认错,又要怎么说呢?

Saturday, October 11, 2008

民政党的虚伪-2

就将在明年三月退下的国阵主席在民政党大会上建议开放国阵的党员籍,好让国阵招收个人会员。

这项建议马上获得子根、袖强等人的认同,说什么“与民政殊途同归”。这些好像执到宝,深以为这样下来,国阵就会重获人们的支持。

严格的来说,就是因为成员党领袖的唯唯诺诺,才造成了今天巫统的独大、巫统的霸权!大马今天沦落到这个地步,就是因为巫统。君不见在308大选过后,马华、民政的大小领袖不是争先恐后的发表谈话,说是被巫统害了吗?不是有人要和巫统划清界限吗?

说的严重一点,巫统的霸权、霸道是历史的共业,马华、民政有份参与、促成这个共业,换言之是“共犯”!

既然大家都有这样的了解,知道问题的关键所在,那么,开放国阵并非可以解决问题。一听到首相说要开放,就一蜂窝的唱好、叫好,等于是“掩耳盗铃”,不敢面对现实!

今天看到一位马来评论员,THE EDGE的执行编辑在13/10/2008-FORUM版写的评论,更是使我对这些“一蜂窝”的领导人感到可悲。

WHAT AILS UMNO ? Azam Aris

..... What ails UMNO in its present form is that it is seen as a party that is arrogant and corrupt and which no longer has the interest of the rakyat - the majority of whom are not umno's members - at heart.

The Umno that fought for the independence and fulfilled the nation's dream , a selfless party that worked and sacrified for the rakyat no longer exists. It has beocme insular and devoid of any feeling of wrongdoing. Umno neither wants to be criticised nor listen to criticism.....

Its political cry for ketuanan Melayu is loathed by the majority of non-malays, including those in the BN.They havo no problem accepting Malay leadership but not malay supremacy ...

Malays who are not umno members are beginning to feel that the party is not interested in promoting their cause but only that of umno. To them ketuanan melayu has become ketuanan umno..

问题在哪里,大家心知肚明,偏偏就是有这么一些领导人在"顾左右而言他",当然他们心里还在盘算着这样就可以“左右逢源”,继续当官/求官!

我很担心,历史的共业会在“顾左右而言他”的情形下长存,而共犯也一代传一代!

天佑大马!

民政党最虚伪

民政党代表大会\党选过了。

我始终觉得民政党很虚伪,自我标榜为多元种族,也曾经一阵子因为多元种族没太大市场而改为非种族,但是改来改去,该党的路是越走越窄,人也越来越少。

到了这次党选,丁福南明明是理想人选,却硬硬被压下来,说什么要排出一个多元种族阵容,但是代表不接受这一套,选出了一个来自槟州的“阿HUAN”,这回就看子根这么处理这个菜单外的人选了!

如果说是多元种族阵容,君不见在全国大选时,民政党的候选人又怎么会是清一色华人呢?

还有,你明知道马华、民政惨败,不是国阵开放不开放党员问题,也不是十多个成员党解散后一起加入国阵成为单一政党就可以解决的。

问题大家都知道是在哪里,套用槟城人的一句口头蝉:不必问阿贵也知道!

还有拿为“阿花”大姐,一下子说要退出国阵,最近又说要留在国阵“纠正国阵”,拜托,民政党就是因为“打进国阵,纠正国阵”而成为千古笑柄啊!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

GOP这回害死人

以前商人一直在提倡"小政府",认为政府的管制越少越好,就让那只看不到的手去操作。

结果,整个制度给弄坏了,造成今天这么凄凉的处境。


从经济泡沫到政治泡沫 ——共和党“永久多数”的破灭
(2008-10-09)

于时语

近年来,美国出现一连串的经济泡沫,先是世纪之交的高科技泡沫,紧接着是房地产泡沫,再到最新的华尔街金融泡沫,从出现、暴涨到破灭的周期之快,令人目不暇接。
  
但是在政治领域,美国还有一个演变速度更惊人的泡沫,这便是喧嚣一时的共和党“永久多数”。最新的征象,是在华尔街金融泡沫破灭之际,却有三分之二的共和党众议员一开始投票反对布什政府的7000亿美元救市法案。
  
在共和党草根“造反”的老生常谈之外,《华尔街日报》精明地指出:反对救市法案的,多是11月大选中席位风雨飘摇的两党议员,而其中共和党人占绝对多数,反映了该党面临的恶劣选情。
“永久多数”有其基础
  
自从在1994年中期选举中,40年来首次夺得美国众议院多数席位,共和党在国会选战中几乎是无往不胜。共和党在2004年的大选中达到高峰,如日中天,“永久多数”之说因之甚嚣尘上。
  
2004年,不仅布什总统以多数选民票获得连任,共和党显著扩大了在参众两院的绝对多数。更有甚者,共和党还全面动员,将民主党在全美政界的最高人物、身为参议院少数党领袖的南达科他州的达斯勒(Tom Daschle)给拉下马,创造了半个多世纪未见的政治奇迹。
  
“保守主义革命”大潮势不可挡,弹冠相庆的保守派人士纷纷认为共和党的“永久多数”将会维持一代人以上。著名右翼论客巴恩斯(Fred Barnes)更预言未来数十年眼看都是“共和党霸权”(Republican hegemony)的天下。
  
可是短短两年之后,民主党便在2006年中期选举中以微弱多数夺回参、众两院的控制。今年大选前景,前引《华尔街日报》的前瞻性分析已经说得十分明白。更重要的是美国政治生态和经济状况的沧桑演变,使得共和党“永久多数”成为美国近代史上周期最短的政治泡沫。
  
在“意识形态”上,共和党“永久多数”的基础可以归纳为:第一,减少政府的社会功能和对经济的干预(“小政府”主义)。最好的例子是里根总统的就职演说:“政府不是我们问题的解答;问题本身正是政府。”
第二,保守的社会“价值”。第三,基于武力的强硬外交政策。

共和党意识形态的破产
  
在政治操作上,共和党“永久多数”依靠的是严密有效的基层组织,以及企业捐款与国会立法之间的“良性互动”。前者得益于基督教右翼,而后者在于成功控制华盛顿K街上的游说公关公司,一时令民主党徒呼荷荷。
  
成也萧何,败也萧何。正如多数论客将共和党“永久多数”归功于“价值”因素,这一泡沫破灭的主因,也在于意识形态的破产。曾几何时,里根总统大力推动的减少政府管制(deregulation),今天被普遍看成是房地产泡沫和金融泡沫的孽因。
  
这种经济思想20年来的英雄功臣、前美国联储局主席格林斯潘,近日居然被意大利右翼政府财长指责为“对美国伤害仅次于宾拉登的罪魁”。
  
被里根总统看成是经济和社会问题根源的政府,如今却成为华尔街“肥猫”们的救星。一直主张紧缩社会福利开支的共和党领袖,却公开实施“救富社会主义”。这样赤裸裸的政策逆转,不能不导致共和党中下层社会基础的政治幻灭,触发共和党籍众议员无奈的“造反”。
  
其次,“反恐”战争在伊拉克和阿富汗的泥沼,严重打击了美国公众对强硬外交政策的信念,成为共和党在意识形态上破产的另一重要原因。相对而言,尽管有包括副总统候选人佩林未成年女儿未婚怀孕的多项道德丑闻,保守社会价值几乎是共和党剩下的唯一意识形态“稻草”。
选民取决于自身的利益
  
在政治操作层面,共和党在掌握国会两院多数后的财务腐败,不仅逆转了共和党“K街计划”的许多成果,更造成公众对利益集团政治献金的反感。另外政治嗅觉灵敏的不少企业界看到“永久多数”的末日,开始重抱民主党的大腿,急剧减少了共和党的政治捐款优势。

在民主社会中,选民意向终究取决于自身利益,在房地产泡沫和金融泡沫相继破灭之后,对大部分民众而言,经济利益不能不压倒“价值”考虑。尤其是与高科技泡沫不同,银行金融股票原是美国中产阶级投资或退休基金中“蓝筹中的蓝筹”,房产金融泡沫的破灭,严重伤到了大部分中产阶级的财产筋骨。共和党基层组织再有效率,也无法抗衡这一经济现实。
  
在普遍看成是大萧条以来最严重经济危机之下,奥巴马如果不是身为黑人,11月大选几乎是探囊取物。在国会,共和党四年前“永久多数”泡沫的彻底覆灭,更是可以翘足而待。

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Toxic loans v 有毒奶粉

中国有毒奶粉的新闻看了令人痛心,的确在中国,人命是无价,不值钱的。

但是,不要忘记,美国的金融风暴,也是有毒的,接下来会害死很多人。

次贷有毒,请看以下文章:-

Calling Out the Culprits Who Caused the Crisis

By Eric D. HovdeSunday, September 21, 2008; B01

Looking for someone to blame for the shambles in U.S. financial markets? As someone who owns both an investment bank and commercial banks, and also runs a hedge fund, I have sat front and center and watched as this mess unfolded. And in my view, there's no need to look beyond Wall Street -- and the halls of power in Washington. The former has created the nightmare by chasing obscene profits, and the latter have allowed it to spread by not practicing the oversight that is the federal government's responsibility.

I find it hard to stomach the fact that investment banks that caused this financial crisis immediately ran to the government asking for assistance, which Bear Stearns received and Lehman Brothers, thankfully, did not. This is one of many eerie parallels that the current meltdown bears to the Great Depression, when Washington and the taxpayers had to step up and take unprecedented action to stabilize the financial markets and the economy.

Unfortunately, the government today has already put enormous taxpayer resources at risk -- bailing out investment firm Bear Stearns, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and insurer AIG, and proposing to buy risky assets from the banking system -- to stop the economy from plummeting into another depression. But these events only underscore the toxic relationship between Washington and Wall Street that has brought us to this point.

To understand the role of that relationship in our current troubles, let's go back to 1999. That was when the hype about the Internet reached its pinnacle. Technology spending by the government and corporations was booming as both sought to address economic and security fears surrounding the so-called Y2K problem, a potential massive computer shutdown at the start of the year 2000.

In the run-up to the millennium, the Federal Reserve, led by then-Chairman Alan Greenspan, began to pump money into the capital markets to deal with any financial problems that might arise from a Y2K meltdown. In the end, 2000 arrived to nothing but a wonderful celebration. But the monetary stimulus, coupled with the aforementioned hype, created an unfortunate bubble in Internet, technology and telecommunications stocks.

At the center of this bubble were the large Wall Street investment banks, which understood the profit potential in promoting the technology boom to overeager clients looking for the investment of a lifetime. From mid-1999 to mid-2000, Wall Street firms took approximately 500 companies public, raising a total of nearly $77 billion for these companies through initial public offerings, or IPOs. For every IPO, the investment banks themselves earned an underwriting fee of 6 percent, returning them an enormous profit.

But apparently that was not enough for Wall Street. As the middlemen between the insatiable investor demand for anything technology-related and young tech entrepreneurs needing to raise capital, the investment banks demanded the opportunity to invest in these companies before the public offerings, when the companies's stocks were valued at a fraction of what they would bring post-IPO. It wasn't uncommon for Wall Street firms to invest tens of millions of dollars in "anything.com" before taking it public, charge a multimillion-dollar fee for the public offering and then watch their investment multiply within a matter of months.

Main Street investors, meanwhile, did not realize that the investment banks had essentially thrown away their underwriting guidelines, which had been in place since the Depression, to take companies public. Among these guidelines were rules requiring that a company be in business for more than five years, be profitable for two or three consecutive years and have certain levels of revenue and profitability. The business models of many of the companies that went public simply weren't viable. Once the Internet bubble burst and the dust settled, America's corporate landscape was littered with bankruptcies and mass layoffs, and investor losses have been estimated at more than $1 trillion.

In an effort to offset the economic strain from these losses, the Fed once again rapidly increased the money supply and slashed short-term interest rates to 1 percent -- a level that hadn't been seen in more than 45 years. This enormous monetary stimulus (along with significant federal spending) energized the overall economy, but it also led to the greatest housing boom -- and possible bust -- this country has ever encountered. From 2002 to 2006, housing values appreciated at an astounding rate of 16 percent per year. It became impossible for the typical American family to buy an average-priced house using a conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Wall Street found another perfect opportunity to propel and take advantage of another forming bubble.

The result was the explosion of toxic new mortgage products that enticed homebuyers into supporting escalating housing prices while eliminating the need for the traditional 20 percent down payment. Whether it was interest-only loans, low- or no-doc "liar loans," or piggyback home-equity loans, the mortgage and banking industries found a way to place almost anyone with -- or even without -- a credit score into a home. Wall Street played its part by packaging those mortgages into complex financial products and selling them to other investors, many of whom had no idea of what they were buying or the associated risks.

Once again, the investment banks raked in billions of dollars in fees, giving them incentive to keep lowering underwriting standards, allowing mortgage companies to originate and sell even the most unscrupulous home loans, which Wall Street then dumped onto the investment community. Wall Street never once questioned the ethics of these activities; it too was focused on the enormous rewards that allowed its firms to pay out an unfathomable $62 billion in bonuses in 2006 alone. Without Wall Street, the housing bubble would have ended shortly after the Fed started to raise interest rates in 2004, because no lenders would have originated these toxic mortgages if they had to keep the loans on their own balance sheets.

The price of all this greed? Sadly, because of the actions of the investment banks, the mortgage industry and the rating agencies, the investment community has now incurred an estimated $1 trillion and more in losses. Even more troubling, housing prices have dropped 20 percent from their July 2006 highs, with the very real likelihood that housing could contract another 15 to 20 percent -- essentially wiping out more than $4 trillion in housing values. This would be the biggest hit since the Depression to Americans' most important asset.

What is even more remarkable is that at the same time, firms such as Goldman Sachs and Lehman not only made billions of dollars packaging and selling these toxic loans, they also wagered with their own capital that the values of these investments would decline, further raising their profits. If any other industries engaged in such knowingly unscrupulous activities, there would be an immediate federal investigation.

Why is Washington so complicit in this intricate and lucrative affair? First, the Fed laid the groundwork for both these asset bubbles by lowering interest rates to historic lows. In an attempt to protect his legacy after the Internet-bubble collapse, Greenspan provided unprecedented stimulus to re-inflate the economy and maintain his popularity with Wall Street. (Remember the "Greenspan put"?) But in doing so, he spawned the largest debt and asset bubble in U.S. history.

At the same time, federal regulatory agencies such as the SEC stood idly by as Wall Street took advantage of the investment public during both the Internet and the housing bubbles. The SEC took almost no action against Wall Street after the dot-com implosion. And in the midst of the housing bubble, in 2006, only the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency pushed for any level of regulation to address subprime lending.

One has to wonder why Treasury secretaries under Presidents Clinton and Bush -- Robert Rubin and Hank Paulson, respectively -- took no action to curb these abuses. It certainly was not because they did not understand Wall Street's practices -- both are former chief executives of Goldman Sachs. And why has Congress been so silent? The Wall Street investment banking firms, their executives, their families and their political action committees contribute more to U.S. Senate and House campaigns than any other industry in America. By sprinkling some of its massive gains into the pockets of our elected officials, Wall Street bought itself protection from any tough government enforcement.

This is no doubt the same reason why so many members of Congress were consistently blocking attempts to reform and downsize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are essentially giant, undercapitalized hedge funds. These two entities have been huge money machines for Democrats in both the House and the Senate, many of whom recently had the gall to ask why these companies hadn't been reformed in the past. Nor should several Republican congressmen and Senators who likewise contributed to watering down legislation aimed at reforming these institutions be let off the hook.

Wall Street's actions are now profoundly hurting American families, communities and the entire U.S. financial system. People are being thrown out of their homes. Once seemingly indestructible financial entities are succumbing to the crisis they have created and have jeopardized the stability of the global financial system. Isn't it ironic that the same firms that preached free-market capitalism are now the ones begging for a taxpayer bailout? Many investment professionals operating in my world believe, as do I, that we are facing the greatest financial crisis since 1929.

Fortunately, today we have safety nets, such as federal deposit insurance, that were non-existent during the Great Depression. Yet there has not been a time since the 1920s when Wall Street has enjoyed as much influence over Washington as it has for the last 12 years. Let's hope that this influence fades rapidly -- and that this financial crisis doesn't end the same way as the one of nearly 80 years ago.

Eric D. Hovde is chief executive of Washington-based Hovde Capital and Hovde Acquisitions.

美国总统大选也是选法官

美国总统的选举除了是选总统之外,其实也在选最高法院的法官。

美国的最高法院法官是由总统提名,再由国会通过。民主党和共和党对一些关键性课题持有不同的看法,好象堕胎合法化就是一个尖锐的课题,在民间引起两极的看法。

纽约时报的社论就特别提醒美国的公民:

September 21, 2008
Editorial

The Candidates and the Court

Among the many issues voters need to consider in this campaign is this vital fact: The next president is likely to appoint several Supreme Court justices. Those choices will determine the future of the law, and of some of Americans’ most cherished rights.

John McCain and Barack Obama have made it clear that they would pick very different kinds of justices. The results could be particularly dramatic under Mr. McCain, who is likely to complete President Bush’s campaign to make the court an aggressive right-wing force.

Mr. Obama seems likely to pick moderate justices, who would probably not take the court back onto a distinctly liberal path, but also would be unlikely to create an unbreakable conservative bloc.

Mr. McCain has promised the right wing of the Republican Party that he would put only archconservatives on the Supreme Court. Even moderate conservatives like Anthony Kennedy, the court’s current swing justice, would not have a chance.

Mr. McCain, whose Web site proclaims his dedication to overturning Roe v. Wade, would appoint justices who could be expected to lead the charge to eliminate the right to abortion. The kinds of justices for whom Mr. McCain has expressed a strong preference would also be likely to undermine the right of habeas corpus, allowing the government to detain people indefinitely without access to lawyers or family members.

Mr. McCain’s justices are likely to join the conservative crusade against the power of Congress. They could be expected to strike down, or sharply limit, federal power to protect clean air and water; ensure food and drug safety; safeguard workers; and prohibit discrimination against women and minorities. They would also likely further erode the separation between church and state.

Mr. McCain has voted to confirm federal judges chosen by Mr. Bush who are radicals, not conservatives. One, Janice Rogers Brown, now on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has attacked Supreme Court decisions upholding New Deal laws as “the triumph of our own socialist revolution.”

Mr. Obama, a former professor of constitutional law, has clashed with Mr. McCain in the Senate over legal issues. Mr. McCain backed the odious Military Commissions Act of 2006, which the Supreme Court held to violate the right of habeas corpus; Mr. Obama opposed it. Mr. McCain was a rubber stamp for Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees; Mr. Obama voted against the worst.

Mr. Obama has said he wants justices who have “the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom” — as well as to be gay, poor or black. He has promised to make “preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as president.”

At the same time, Mr. Obama has put distance between himself and legal liberals on issues like the death penalty for child rapists and the constitutionality of gun control. As president, Mr. Obama would probably be more inclined to appoint centrist liberals, like Justice Stephen Breyer, than all-out liberals, like William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall.

Predicting vacancies on the court is difficult. But odds are that members of the liberal bloc, like 88-year-old John Paul Stevens, will leave first. That means that if Mr. Obama is elected, he might merely keep the court on its current moderately conservative course. Under Mr. McCain, if a liberal justice or two or three steps down, we may see a very different America.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

钱 - 放在自己的口袋最安全

美国引发的金融风暴不知道几时才会落幕。但是,有一点可以肯定的是大家都会受影响。不管是你买保险,还是每月交付EPF,这些平时的积蓄将有一部分是投资在由美国所首创的“金融产品”。

很多人都知道在民间有所谓的“跟会”的投资玩意儿。目前美观的金融风暴就象是“会首”倒会的情形了,只是幅度是太大、太大了。

这里介绍一篇文章:-

財經漫遊:政府與投資者,都別再犯相同錯誤

沈雲驄

 說實話,我不太相信,你真的明白雷曼兄弟、美林是怎麼垮的。就像你一定不知道,世界為了他們,到現在還亂成一團,但這些公司卻已悄悄佈局,就等你大駕光臨。
 到雷曼兄弟官方網站看看。什麼破產,哪有災難,首頁上,這可是一家「全球金融創新者」,致力於「滿足政府、企業、高資產淨值投資人的需求」,且是「交易與研究」的「領先者」。營業狀況?網站上可以找到的財報,顯示著,過去五年來,公司不僅很賺錢,而且營業額、獲利能力、資產總額,年年都成長。那,最近的風暴是怎麼回事?很簡單,因為今年賠錢。不過,已經沒事了,新聞稿上輕描淡寫的說,雷曼兄弟北美的投資銀行與資本市場的業務──包括一萬名員工,以及最近遊客去拍照留念的總部大樓──都將由巴克萊銀行接手,繼續營業。安了。  
不只是雷曼兄弟。看看已經易主的美林,官網首頁上,也毫不吝於跟大家分享自己已經被賣掉的消息,大方地寫著:「獲美國銀行收購」。網頁上引述美國銀行的話表示,能取得這麼一家「優質財富管理、資本市場與顧問公司,對我們的股東而言是很棒的機會」。「結合起來,」美國銀行董事長路易斯說:「我們的公司將更有價值。」
 一副很有價值的樣子的,還包括半年前就已經出事的貝爾斯登。從這陣子媒體的報導來看,你很可能以為這公司早就壽終正寢。抱歉,錯了,貝爾斯登其實還在,而且「很高興地宣佈」,與摩根大通的合併已經完成。「這次併購,」該公司說:「結合了兩家優異的公司,以及最完整的金融服務。」然後,底下有個連結:「更多關於我們如何幫助客戶達到目標」。
 也就是說,申請破產也好,被併購也好,風暴還沒過去,這些業者已把招牌擦亮,要繼續幫助你,完成你的財富夢想。這正是眼前這場金融危機,最可議與可怕之處。
 可議的,是這些業者至今,沒有對自己的行為表示悔悟,絕口不提自己到底做錯了什麼、該負起什麼責任。不只美國,其他國家也一樣,業者們怪美國人捅出大婁子,怪總體經濟差,怪房地產冷,怪股市跌,也沒有說說看,自己不是標榜能幫顧客管理財富,不是口口聲聲能讓大家更有錢,為什麼沒有事先警告顧客,害得這麼多人賠錢?
 可怕的,則是從政府到投資者,似乎也不計較業者們怎麼說,一昧急著想快快擺脫眼前的麻煩。官員大力護盤,公開信心喊話;投資散戶四處打聽:風暴快結束沒?是不是快觸底了?可不可以進場撿便宜了?這幾天,又開始有名嘴與老師們,大聲販賣「逢低買進」的概念。他們在電視上侃侃而談,向焦慮不安、失去方向感的投資人解釋,在這種時代,人還是要投資,風暴總會過去,聰明的,就要懂得在危機中入市。
 危機入市,當然不是不行。但,危機究竟是如何發生,我們又是如何一步步邁入危機?沒弄懂,沒明白正確的方法,下回要怎樣迴避?
 首先,危機當然還沒結束。銀行的倒閉骨牌秀,仍然在上演;那些被併購的、被轉手的,即將面臨全球性的裁員潮;全球不甘損失的憤怒投資人,正在串連打官司求償;這星期,大家都在看,規模排名第二的摩根史坦利,能不能度過這一關,會不會被中國人給吞掉。
 其次,就算風暴過去,風險也不會停止。多年來,全球金融業最嚴重的錯誤,就是大量販賣被低估的風險。他們一方面,自以為能透過精密的算計,做穩賺不賠的生意,另一方面催眠散戶,讓大家以為基金低風險、股票能致富,人人都能賺大錢,把大筆大筆的存款,誘惑到高風險的金融市場中。
 至於政府,也不應再跟著起舞。這次危機,不是意外,而是政府長期縱容的結果。一年來,經濟學家反覆警告,最壞的情況還沒到來;巴菲特早在二○○三年就提出對衍生性金融商品的憂心,認為這是顆「隨時引爆的定時炸彈」;前一年,李昂.里維在他臨終前的回憶錄中,也提醒人們注意建諸於信用擴張的金融活動,會腐蝕經濟的未來。然而,這些諍言,都被淹沒在業者們大量製造的廣告中,政府眼睜睜地,看著散戶繼續往火坑裡跳,也錯失了逃離虧損的先機。
 不管是否順利逃離,投資人與政府,都要提醒自己別再犯同樣的錯誤。

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

916变天者要读

今天,916变天的传言真要把大马给颠覆了。这么多人关心,证明一点,大家都要求变。在这种情形下,领导人要知道怎么办。

就请大家读这篇不错的文章:

國際專欄─夏普的非暴力鬥爭
郭崇倫
 政治學過去研究政治變遷與權力轉移時,很簡單的分為體制外的革命與體制內的選舉;但很多情況卻是兩者之外。譬如百日以來曼谷「人民民主聯盟」所領導的示威,既不同意重新選舉、也不同意公民複決,就是要求總理辭職;又譬如喬治亞與烏克蘭的「顏色革命」,都是從公民團體不滿選舉結果,指控不公開始,繼而占據首都市中心,發起大規模抗爭,迫使當權派讓步,重新選舉使得反對派上台。
 他們採取的手段如此類似,不禁令人好奇是不是都詳讀了夏普﹝Gene Sharp﹞的非暴力鬥爭手冊《從獨裁到民主》(From Dictorship to Democracy)。
 當然自他十五年前寫這本書之後,世界發生許多變化,不是夏普所可以預料到的;譬如網路與手機的發達。但是,夏普對抗獨裁政權的想法,卻歷久彌新;譬如警告與當權者談判的危險、剖析獨裁政權內部的弱點。他在書後詳列的一百九十八種非暴力抗議方式,羅列完備,更讓許多異議份子受益無窮;像是:模擬頒獎(第十四)、轉身蔑視(第五十四)、消極與緩慢的服從(第一一三)等。
 年已八十,終身未婚的夏普,從研究生開始就對甘地與印度獨立運動非常關注,以研究非暴力抗爭為志願。在越戰期間,他身體力行,拒絕被徵召而下獄九個月。出獄後,他輾轉在英國與北歐求學、教書,最後落腳哈佛國際研究中心。
 夏普其實從來不是一個行動家,書呆子也許是更好的形容。他的想法雖然付諸文字(七三年的九百頁巨著《非暴力行動的政治》),但要靠他人才能實現「市場價值」。他的第一位貴人竟是他的博士指導學生艾克曼;艾克曼畢業後,跟著華爾街大亨米肯,做垃圾債券買賣,賺了千萬家財,一九八三年他支助老師創辦愛因斯坦學社(Albert Einstein Institution),開始散播以非暴力方式對抗獨裁政權的方法。
 四年後,一位美國前駐緬甸武官哈爾維在哈佛受訓時,接到夏普的傳單;出於好奇,他旁聽夏普上課,那時正值緬甸軍事政變,哈爾維立即感覺到非暴力途徑的效用,成了夏普的第二位貴人。三年後,哈爾維退伍,在邊境叢林教授反政府游擊隊非暴力手段,一九九二年,夏普受邀來視察「緬甸分班」,應當地游擊隊之請,寫了一本更易懂、更有操作性的手冊,從此誕生了《從獨裁到民主》。
 這本手冊剛開始是在巴爾幹半島流傳,塞爾維亞青年反對團體Otpor用來發起全國不合作運動,逼使米洛塞維奇下台。接著,喬治亞與烏克蘭的政治異議份子到貝爾格勒來上課,導致喬治亞在二○○三年、烏克蘭在二○○五年政權接連更迭。誠如巴爾幹一位異議份子所說的,「你當然不可能進口社會革命,但是(革命的)知識是會轉移的」。
 俄羅斯反對派也發現了這本書,網路下載翻成俄文,好不容易找到有勇氣的出版社印行,兩家販售的書店卻被焚。伊朗異議人士翻譯成波斯文,政府立即將夏普醜化為CIA間諜。
 目前共有廿二種文字,包括西藏文、簡體中文可在網站免費下載(www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html),就像善書一樣,夏普歡迎轉印散發,最近經費困難,大家各憑良心,每本捐助六美元。
 夏普與台灣的淵源很早,黨外時代徐璐的《非暴力鬥爭的一一○種方法》就是取材於《非暴力行動的政治》。黃華擔任民進黨組織部主任時,也曾拜訪過波士頓的愛因斯坦學社。但最密切的則是在一九九四年,夏普曾應不分區立委林哲夫之邀來台兩周,南北演講十場;談的主題是群眾防衛,目標是嚇阻想要武力侵犯的敵國以及顛覆傀儡政權,引用的例子是立陶宛在九一年如何使用非暴力策略對抗蘇聯而重獲自由。
 對抗獨裁者爭取民主,其實才是夏普的重點,但民進黨已經執政後,再強調非暴力鬥爭策略,就有些尷尬,民進黨後來強調夏普的非暴力只能是最後手段,「一切民眾的訴求都應該透過合法的程序立法」。
 擁有權力者永遠強調合法,非法即意味著有些訴求被排除在外,累積的不正義一定造成反彈,否則紅衫軍、黃衫軍、「薔薇革命」又是怎麼產生的,這才是夏普手冊的真精神。 (clkuo@mail.chinatimes.com.tw)

Saturday, September 13, 2008

民营 V 国营

国营公司一大堆烂摊子世界各地皆然。

財經漫遊─睜開眼睛,看看誰在制高點上

沈雲驄
 雖沒明講,但全世界都知道,被美國財政部接管的房地美與房利美,是不折不扣的「國營」企業。錢,國家出;人,國家管;專業經理人?滾吧;股東?閃邊去。
 怎麼回事?不是大家都說,企業,是民營的好。國營,是低效率、浪費、米蟲的代名詞;要民營,才代表著有效率,會賺錢,才是拚經濟的王道。怎麼,二十一世紀才剛開始,在美國這個世界資本主義的大本營,國家居然伸出手,反倒把民營變國營了呢?
 沒有官員回答。財長鮑爾森翻來覆去,根本不願意直接說出國營化這個辭,當然不會有什麼解釋;各國央行與財政官員,慶幸著自己滿手的二房商品有救,免於賠了人民的錢而灰頭土臉,高興都來不及,怎會有什麼批判檢討。只要有救,國營,就國營吧。
 政府不肯面對,人民卻不能視如不見。現代國營企業的概念,濫觴於一次大戰後的歐洲,當時許多國家相信,政府的角色,是擬定國家經濟發展的目標,預設重點發展的產業。這些產業能民營的,就讓民間經營,民間無意願或無力集資的,就由政府出錢。「政府必須站在制高點上,」一九二二年底,列寧在推出著名的「新經濟政策」時說,帶領人民做對的事情。
 往後半個多世紀,列寧口中的制高點(commanding height),成了全球現代化的引擎。從歐洲、亞洲、中南美洲,政府紛紛站到制高點,透過國營企業完成許多重要的公共建設,達成民間企業無力完成的任務,推動了經濟成長。從能源到農業,只要是民間缺乏資金與意願做、但國家又有需要的產業,就由國營企業來負責。
 但是漸漸的,這些國營企業達成任務之後,出現了大家今天所熟知的老化與腐敗,經營效率不彰、服務品質惡劣。本應扮演「制高點」角色的國營企業,不是成了政治權貴眼中的肥肉,就是成了收容無能官僚的肥缺。罵聲連連中,也掀起了過去二十年來,席捲全球的民營化風潮。
 問題是,早在這回二房民營轉國營之前,人們就已經發現,民營化,也怪怪的。一來,為什麼民營化之後,這些原本屬於國家、也因此屬於人民的企業,都納入了大財團的麾下,反而沒有了人「民」的影子?還有,為什麼很多國營企業,明明已經民營化了,政府還是三不五時的,得拿人民的錢,去協助這些企業?
 看看房地美與房利美,不是年年季季有財報?不是天天被數以百萬計精明的投資與投機客盯著瞧?不是有號稱要負責維持交易秩序的證管會在把關,怎麼,就沒人發現表面上業績漂亮,股價不便宜的這兩家公司,骨子裡全是爛帳?搞到今天,國家必須出手,搞到財政部長包爾森半夜睡不著,得趁著週末,緊急出來宣佈接管?
 鮑爾森的救援,正暴露了政府長期棄守「制高點」的難堪事實。十幾年來,在把國營企業奉送給財團的過程中,政府忘記了,自己必須替人民看守制高點的責任,它們縱容財團們追逐自己的利益,放任企業經理人們肆無忌憚地霸佔利潤。這星期,德州參議員康能提案,要求調查房地美與房利美專業經理人應負的刑事責任,算是一記遲來的警鐘。接下來呢?
 在政府棄守制高點情況下,所出現自由資本市場失靈現象,也是不容再忽視的問題。沒錯,資本市場曾經為富國與窮國都帶來了財富,但現在,這個財富的天平已經明顯傾斜,讓財富愈來愈集中在少數人手上;過去,資本市場曾經是就業機會的製造機,現在,這部機器已經失控;照理說,資本市場可讓窮國翻身,但看看越南,很多窮國還沒翻身,就背上了投機國度的罵名。
 用國家的資源,拿人民的納稅錢,去拯救民營公司,當然不是好方法;政府重拾國營概念,把大生意拿回來自己經營,也不是好主意。政府應該做的,是站回到制高點上,繼續擔起人民與企業無法完成的任務。比方說,教育與保健,經濟條件再壞,政府都要持續投資與改革;政府必須站上制高點,看管人民的利益,讓資本市場能在公平合理的前提下運作,不讓少數人假自由市場之名,掠奪經濟改善的果實;還有,那些在企業眼中無利可圖、卻又重要的社會政策,諸如環境品質的維護等,總該有人站到制高點上,保護人民。不是嗎?

Friday, September 12, 2008

英九落难,哎!

看来马英九这回落难了,说什么退居二线,说开了就是不沾锅,隔岸观火。做领袖如果可以退居二线,等一切风平浪静后才出来收拾,那太容易了,谁都可以做了。我们要的领袖是站在最前线,虽千万人,吾往矣!

台湾当地的报章对马总统已经不再客气,哪些“马迷”看了会很心痛吧!

这是联合报的社论:-


馬英九的課題:人心,人心,人心!
【聯合報╱社論】
2008.09.12 02:57 am

一位政治領袖,要累積多少的人心,才能攀登政治最高峰?馬英九當選總統,得票率五十八%,得票數七六五萬;不論得票率或得票數皆創最高紀錄。今年三二二的馬英九,毫無疑問深獲人心。
然而,馬英九就任總統剛過一百天;卻儼然已成眾矢之的,從電視到報紙皆稱他是「笨總統」。人心的流失,居然宛如江河瀉地。
行政院前天連夜發布振興經濟方案,證交稅減半為千分之一點五;昨天股市的回應卻是仍然重跌二○六點,台幣匯率亦因外資撤離而跌破三十二元關卡。
大家都說,人心不再,信心已失。為何一位萬方寄望的政治明星馬英九,竟然在百日之間就落到人心渙散的地步。這種天壤之變,簡直是政治史上的「奇蹟」。
人心的累積不易,已經累積的人心一旦流失而想要找回更不易。尤其,許多國人原本將當下政經困境歸因於國際情勢,但如今卻已將原因轉為馬英九的領導因素所致。這種「人心」的轉變,已是馬英九及執政團隊的最大危機。
所謂政治,有很大一部分就是人心的維持。成功的領導,就是人心所向,猶如水能載舟。失敗的領導,就是人心流失,猶如水能覆舟。馬英九說「跟我走沒有錯」,這句話顯已受到質疑。
其實,我們早已對現今的情勢發出預警。三二二馬英九當選總統,我們就指出那是一個「帶著問號的勝利」;並期望馬總統能由「好人」也轉成「能人」。六月九日,我們是第一個評論「退居第二線」的媒體,並提醒不要淪為「法匠」或「法奴」;接著,我們直接呼籲馬總統對人心的變化提高警覺:疑惑可能轉為質疑,質疑可能轉為輕視,輕視可能轉為敵視。
最後,馬總統一句「六三三在二○一六年實現」,終於使人心潰堤,一發不可收拾。我們所擔心的疑惑、質疑、輕視及敵視,皆已一一浮現。
領導的效能主要表現在維繫及鼓舞人心。在社會座標上,領導者必須站在「第一線/最前線」;馬英九的一句「退居第二線」,對於他的領袖形象衝擊至大。另在心理座標上,領導者尤其應當站在「第一線/最前線」,因而,「八年後六三三」之類的發言,被認為是未戰先降,比群眾還要先撤退,這當然是國人不能忍受之事。
馬總統的人品不必挑剔,但這樣的人品能否帶領國人迎戰艱巨,卻已是一個疑問。謹守分際,變成「退居第二線」;揭示現實,又演成「八年後六三三」;眼中只看到「施明德」,卻看不到背後可以收聚的民心;心中只顧慮自己的羽毛,對國務費案的「解密」猶豫不決;「外交休兵」無修飾,「非國與國關係」太露骨;只問「政見」實現沒有,不知情勢變遷沒有……。這一切爭議似乎都源自一個「格式化」、「公式化」的「好人形象」,但是否符合一個守經、通權、達變的領袖人格?
不少人疑惑,馬總統是否陷於他在人格特質上的「好人公式」或「好人框架」之中;不沾鍋固然使他不易沾染塵垢,但也使他不能吸附人心,凝聚人心。因此,他原本擁有的強沛民氣與民心,竟在就職百日幾已流失殆盡。
有一比喻:陳水扁是一個黏土娃娃,什麼東西都沾黏得上去;珍珠沾得上,穢物也黏得上。馬英九則是一個瓷娃娃,什麼東西都沾黏不上去;汙穢沾不上,珍珠也黏不上。
馬英九現在已面對「破窗效應」,好像誰都能對他數落幾句;但絕不可使自己處在「疑惑/質疑/輕視/敵視」的惡性循環中。往股市的火堆裡丟鈔票沒有用,最重要的是重建自己的領袖形象,拾回人心,人心,人心!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

擦上你的口红

陳文茜專欄─擦上妳的口紅吧

 奇怪,閱讀歷史,發現這一百多年來的全球性金融危機,根源都來自於美國。我們這一代人,記得最早的金融危機,好似三十年代華爾街大蕭條,但那恐怕是因為我們的記憶所及,只能到爺爺奶奶那一輩。閱讀近代史,第一次華爾街大股災,早源於一八五七年。而且一切故事,都是重演,都是輪迴。
 一八五七年美國當時正如今天的中國,才剛崛起。來自加州的金礦流向全世界,而起家於美國西部的大騙子以貪汙、舞弊、內線交易種種花招,充斥華爾街。這個年輕國度,正實現歐洲人發展經濟的最佳新沃土。《紐約先驅報》如此描述一八五七年大崩潰前的豪奢風氣:「富而不必工作,美麗莊園、優雅藝術品、美好的服飾……,這是每一個民眾的美國夢。」
 第一回創造華爾街泡沫化的原凶,主角為鐵路公司。一八二○年至一八四○年,美國人口從九百萬增長至一千七百萬,決定性的因素即為便宜且快速的運輸鐵路;高效率的貨物轉運,使美國工業投資二十年間,增長了五倍;其中最大的投資項目即為興建鐵路。我們現在活著的當代動輒封誰為「股神」、「投資大師」、「油神」,一八五七年,華爾街也有這麼一號人物:丹尼爾茱(Daniel Drew)。在他破產聲名狼藉前,華爾街給了他一個崇敬封號「鐵路股王」。股市崩盤後,他的最終評價則完全相反,「一開口就說謊,一靜下來就想行竊」。為了詐騙他人的盲目跟從,丹尼爾會不經意假裝洩漏股市內幕消息;某次他「不小心」把交易單掉在一位經紀商身邊,當他的交易單從皮夾「遺落」地板時,全華爾街交易所立刻為之震動,市場謠言四起,眾人於是皆買進了「伊利湖鐵路公司」的股票,伊利湖股價大漲,而丹尼爾則大舉出清原先已無人承接的鐵路股票;沒隔幾天,股市即大崩盤。
 從一八五七年華爾街第一次大崩盤至今,歷史已從火燒圓明園到北京奧運,走了一大輪。泡沫化的主角,一五一年來不斷地換手,從鐵路股、電信汽車股、網路股、地產股……。我們現在經歷的「二房危機」,只是每一個泡沫年代戲劇的重演,房利美成立於大蕭條之後,目的就是為了穩定房貸市場,省得每個人都跳樓;「房地美」與它純為孿生兄弟,為了不使房利美過於龐大,一九七○年正式分割為「二房」。二房出現嚴重虧損後,美國金融單位一經檢查,發現上至執行長,中至管理階層,下至基層職員,都在偽造信用記錄,這完全是一八五七年華爾街大崩盤的翻版。當時某家鐵路公司被查出一份賄賂名單,上從州長,下到小報編輯,賄賂價目表宛若一頁經濟史的核心文件,告訴我們如此荒唐金融現象的背後是如何產生。州長五萬美元、副州長一萬美元、財政部長一萬美元、《民主報》發行人比照州長祕書五千美元、《守衛報》編輯一萬美元、法官等相關人士共二十三萬六千美元,共計八十七萬二千美元。
 這些資料後來被登錄於《貿易危機史》,一八七四年出版,著作人麥克司威爾斯。
 一八五七年後,顯然沒有什麼人得到太多教訓,人性的貪婪與擁抱成功投機客,不會改變;以致我們只好每隔一段時間,即經歷所謂的股市大崩盤,周而復返,終其餘盡。
 閱讀一五一年來的經濟崩潰史,惟一有趣之處,為口紅與經濟興衰的辯證關連。一八○○年初期,「蒼白」是一種風尚,一名狀似瀕死的婦人面容,被社交圈視為「迷人」的象徵。這種病態美的追求,融合了死亡與瘋狂,綿延了整個十九世紀。一八五七年華爾街股市第一次崩盤,當時的美國經濟產值還不足以撼動全球經濟;到了一九二九年,華爾街再胡鬧一次,全球苦痛到了頂點。為了免於人人自殺,羅斯福提出新政,其中很大的部分即為資助好萊塢電影。電影中嘉寶鮮紅的口紅形象,席捲全歐美,改變了人們對美的概念,口紅成了最受歡迎的產品。美容沙龍到處開設,提供荒涼苦痛的世界最好的避難所。口紅成了一種時代的宣言,勇氣和力量的象徵,對抗一個挽救不了的蕭條時代。
 Elizabeth Arden在一九三九年刊登了一則廣告,「擦上妳的口紅,提振我們的士氣,對抗戰爭。」Helena Rubinstein則以如下的證言,從此決定了口紅在經濟史的地位,「一杯咖啡和口紅,我能面對世界。」
 二○○八年九月,次貸危機下,擦上妳的口紅吧!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

马华要走好!

黨政豈可不分家?
2008年9月8日
作者 - 何啟斌

大馬政黨和政府(官僚──以政府行政部門主管為主文官體制)的歷史如下:

第一階段:日軍撤走後到獨立前,是由英國軍事行政為主的官僚統治(BMA)。當時的聯邦議會由英殖官僚與官委議員組成。主要目的在於維持英殖民主的統治和英商的利益(包括華商買辦階級)。

第二階段:獨立後到69年513事件後的軍政治理(國家行動理事會)。這期間的官僚少受執政黨聯盟的影響。它主要在維護「後殖民主」的經濟利益如「土庫公司」及大園坵、錫礦場等。馬華公會的諸公身負「歷史重任」,以確保這個「後殖民主義」的利益延續。巫統頭領都由馬華資本家和頭家贊助來維持其「政權」,多數的馬來群眾和受華教者被排除在外。

第三階段:國家行動理事會解除緊急法令,開始實行新經濟政策直到馬哈迪醫生開始私營化政策(1984年左右)。這段期間,巫統執政策及行政的牛耳,不但推行「新政策」(包括教育土著化),還把「官僚」徹底土著化。最重要的是先後設立ICDAU(現改為ICU或執行及協調單位)來取代EPU(經濟策劃單位),後再把EPU土著化,確保土著政策等等都可以順利執行。這個期間最顯著的是政府設立幾千間官聯機構。馬華公會當時的作用在於反擊「工業協調法令」,大專學額分配,關閉華小等等的「行政措施」。簡言之,當時的「政黨」對於土著是一體,反之,馬華已經不復513之前的「可支配」官僚的作用。

馬華對華社的作用

第四階段:自1984年到1998年大事私營化,把官僚的作用降低。但是這段期間政治鬥爭激烈,不但有巫統分裂,馬華暫代國陣主席位,還有司法危機,茅草行動及東亞金融危機後的安華撤職及街頭大示威等等。巫統及馬華當時的作用在於「穩定政局」。官僚,尤其是軍警更是重要的勢力。

第五階段:自馬哈迪退休後,強人之治消失。阿都拉的「放任」及黃家定的「默默耕耘」領導方式,使到國陣難免受制於「官僚」。可以說從2004年至今,大馬政治幾乎是「Auto-Pilot」(蔡銳明的評語),由官僚主導,所以缺少方向。

從以上的一些簡短分析來看,馬華公會過去50多年的歷史,對於國家和華社的作用和效果不可一筆帶過,也不應一面倒苛評或盲目讚頌。人民應回想一下,如果當年(獨立前)不是馬華公會成功爭取放寬申請公民權的條件,積極鼓勵及協助超過100萬華人父老申請,今天的華人將和那些「紅登記持有者」一樣,沒有參政權、沒有投票權,甚至沒有政治發言權。試問,華裔的處境又將如何?

馬華領袖選擇不多

現在華社及馬華諸公面對的問題如下:
(一)政治幾乎是「兩線制」,民聯還多次放話可以執政。對華人而言,除了回教黨及回教法的問題,民聯更吸引人,可能是更好的選擇。
(二)巫統積極和回教黨討論,可能作出很多讓步,結果是大馬更回教化、更種族化,因為巫統若與回教黨結盟,就不需要與民聯爭華人票。升旗山議員的「寄居論」不是偶然,而是在投石問路。
(三)文官體制(或官僚)已經超土著化。就算民聯執政,要徹底執行非土著政策還要一番鬥爭。之間便是「犧牲」,如1972至1976年EPU改革時所犧牲的是「成長」。
(四)政治不穩,軍警統率。以今天的形勢來推論,再下去的幾年,軍警及文官的作用將更顯著。到了2012年下屆大選時,如果國陣不改弦易轍,大力刺激成長,維護民生,人民必再反,後果是「政黨輪替」。大馬肯定會邁向「台灣之路」或進入「泰國式民主」。
(五)經濟難振。這幾年全球陷入「衰退形勢」,大馬難一枝獨秀。許多本國資金已外流。從上面的分析,將還有更多外流。外流是有先見之華資的正確舉動,外資更不會冒然大量登陸。

基於以上的分析,華人或馬華頭領的選擇也不多了。一是全盤倒向民聯讓它有絕對優勢,執政治牛耳,另一則是反過來全盤支持國陣,再給它一個機會來穩定局勢。馬華公會在這兩個範疇下的作用是:

(一)不斷向國陣及巫統領導提醒:不要再讓政策和言論土著化或讓極端主義抬頭。這幾天翁詩傑等頭領的大聲抨擊是正確的作法。
(二)不停的向華社放話:放棄前朝官僚的作風,進行改革,不再讓國陣「失調」事件重演,還要積極以行動來證明之。
(三)盡力推行國陣機制的改變,必須要以更開明取代「放任」,更要以「民生」為大前提,以「成長」為議程,取代過去幾年的不景。
(四)繼續開放「官僚」體制,黃家定最成功之處在於說服阿都拉開放文官職位。現已有顯著開放,但卻鮮為人知。不唱高調不行 ,一定要高調讓人人知,否則徒勞無功。
(五)更重要的是,一定要阻止更回教化的政策。雖說不能影響巫統回教黨合作,但還可以起阻止的積極作用。要求華社一起阻撓之!但如果華社不反應,也無可奈何。

在以上的各種分析和前提下,或許可以有一個定案:華人正處十字路口,馬華公會也面對歷史挑戰。華人可以再一起倒國陣或支持它。馬華一離國陣,必敗;馬華走多元也一樣無效,馬華現在所需要的是「新領導層」。過去的陳修信統領全國為殖民主服務;李三春掌權時對抗巫統;林良實運籌帷幄17年,還可見證「Malaysia Boleh」。黃家定提出「樹立健康政治文化」,脫離現實,以致功敗垂成,幾乎斷送整個馬華。

今天馬華的新領導層將誕生,如果再重演前朝的種種,那華人也不應再考慮了,來一個大改變,讓新力量抬頭。

我国的民主政治..唉!

AHMAD ISMAIL 几乎把整个国家给颠覆。国阵是这么脆弱了,我国的民主政治更是这么不堪一击。

请大家参阅下文:

泰国:恶质民主又一例
(2008-09-09)

丘吉尔说过,除开其他政府形式不说,民主是最糟糕的政府形式。这是一个曾经吃过民主苦头的英国政治家的心底话,有几分的调侃,但更多的是无奈。民主这东西,理论上是个好东西,但一碰上现实,往往却不是个东西。这是因为,民主制度的落实须具备许多先决条件,莫说在亚洲,即使是在老牌的欧美,现实中的民主其实也是捉襟见肘的。很多国家究实都不完全具备实行民主制的必要条件,包括泰国。
  
现实中的民主,不仅多种多样,也没有一个真正臻于民主的理想境界。当今世界民主国家占了绝大多数,但斤两各自不同,民主程度固然各异,客观政治效果也参差不齐,好坏不一。我们在民主的道路上摸索前进,摸着石头过河,至今不过半个世纪,因此,别轻易相信我们的民主已经成熟了,别国的经验,不管是正面的还是负面的,还是有很多可资参照和借鉴的。
  
台湾式的民主,固是恶质民主一例,历史更加悠久的泰国式民主亦然。南方朔说,(台湾)民进党已注定将成为未来政治教科书上恶质民主的警示教材。我想,泰式民主同样为我们提供了许多教训。 
  
美国学者罗伯特·达尔(Robert Dahl)认为,民主的实现应具备五个关键性条件:一、政治上,文官政治,军队和警察控制在由选举产生的官员手中;二、经济上,现代化的市场经济;三、文化上,公民具备民主的信念和政治文化;四、国内,不存在剧烈的文化冲突;五、国际上,不存在强大的敌视民主的外部势力(包括国内反民主势力)。
各有山头的利益集团
  
泰国推翻君主专制已有70几年的历史,但至今也算不上是个成熟的民主,反倒像个民主的怪胎。之所以说它是恶质民主,主要是因为它和台式民主一样,分裂社会,撕裂族群;权钱勾结,民不能做主。
  
时下一些为台湾和泰国民主辩护的人,总是要人看到民主的好处,相信民主之可行,而不愿正视现实中严重的政治弊端,甚至迷信单靠民主制度就能解决所有的弊端。这就好像明明看到没穿衣服的皇帝在当众出丑,却硬是要称赞那看不见的新衣有多么漂亮。就这样,泰国民主折腾了几十年,既死不了,也长不高。十足是个民主的怪胎。
  
泰王和军队之间有着密切的关系,两者在泰国的政治中也扮演着非常重要的角色。军队往往不是听命于民选的政府。2006年,前首相达信被军人政变推翻前两个月,曾任陆军总长和首相的泰王蒲眉蓬首席顾问布勒姆,在向一群年轻军官训话时就曾这么说:“士兵就像马儿,政府只是骑师,不是马主,你们是听候国家和国王陛下差遣的马儿。”(9月5日《联合早报》引述路透社特稿)
  
过去74年来,泰国民主历经了18次政变,宪法也经过无数次的中止和修改,泰国民主却没有因此运转起来,反之,它一直在政变、政府轮替、民选、军管的怪圈中打转,首相换了一个又一个,除了达信,几乎没人有本事任满一届。“令人啼笑皆非的是,在1932年军人政变推翻君主专制制度之后,泰国才出现民选政府,但军人却不时发动政变,把政府撵下台。泰国平均每四年发生一次军人政变。”(同上)

泰国民主往往导致政局失控,陷于混乱,而本来应该受民选政府指挥的军队,反倒不时成了拨乱反正的力量。这是多么的讽刺!但选择一味盲目讴歌民主而不顾现实的人,却仍然像称赞皇帝的新衣一样,称颂着泰国的民主和台湾的民主。也许是因为在这两个地方,动辄有数以万计的人走上街头示威。殊不知,示威所反映的往往不是民主,而是民主的失败或失效。
  
经济上,泰国实行的是市场经济,应该算是具备民主的经济条件了,但是事实不然。现实中,市场经济也有很多变种。泰国经济主要是操控在利益集团和大家族手中,城乡之间贫富鸿沟巨大。前首相达信就是因为财雄势大,走民粹主义路线,到乡村地区收买民心,获得广泛支持,不仅做满一届首相,还在大选中连任。
  
但是,达信个人、家族、政党和相关利益集团势力的扩张,却无可避免地伤及其他人的既得利益,因此也引起强力的反弹,有人甚至指他蔑视泰王,使王室感到不安。对各自为政,各有山头的利益集团(包括泰王和军方)而言,有一个强大的政府也并非好事,因为那意味着他们无法或者难以过着藩镇割据的日子,也无法再从弱势政府无力监控全局的情况中得益。于是非要去之而后快。达信终于在政变中被赶下台。
恶性循环的怪圈
  
泰国公民是否具备民主信念和政治文化呢?看来未必。在最新的这场倒沙玛首相的运动中,主导抗争的反对派人民民主联盟(简称民盟,PAD)首领林明达竟然公开倡议废除民选国会,认为大部分泰国国会议员应该通过官委而不是民选。其所持的理由更是荒谬:乡村区的选民教育水准低,很容易受到达信的操纵,不懂得明智地投手中的一票。这对乡村地区支持达信势力的泰国人而言,无疑是莫大的侮辱。
  
说白了,在民盟的领袖看来,支持达信的选民就是智慧不够,不懂得选出一个民主政府,所以,要彻底清除达信势力,包括被视为达信代理人的沙玛及其人民力量党,唯有改变现在的选举制度。那么,至少在民盟领袖眼中,泰国公民是不具备民主的信念和政治文化的。当然,他们“只看见弟兄眼中有一粒灰,却不想自己 眼中有梁木”。
  
然而,那些参与民盟示威的群众似乎不管这些。他们似乎只听到林明达声嘶力竭的呼喊:我是为了拯救民主免受贪官滥用而奋斗。
  
这是民盟的“民主”,由民盟来作主吧。有些泰国人也许会感叹:啊,民主,多少罪恶假汝之名以行!然而,也犹如台湾,总有一大群泰国人死心塌地地支持民盟,参加示威,占领首相府大院。民盟的行动已引来沙玛支持者的反击,双方对峙,局势紧张,泰国社会也明显分裂。在这种情形下,泰国民主是物腐虫生,根本无需外力介入,内斗已足以让它深陷泥沼,动弹不得。
  
和台湾人一样,泰国人看起来也是同文同种,没什么语言、文化、宗教种族上的大分歧。不幸的是,政党政治和利益政治就是有本事惹是生非,挑动民众的情绪,形成社会的分裂和对立。这是很多地方的民主政治通病,泰国与台湾并非例外。关键点是不是公民欠缺民主的信念和政治文化呢?我想答案应该是肯定的。
  
纵观以上各点,足见在泰国,实现民主的关键条件都是很薄弱的。因此,也难怪泰式民主始终难以跳脱那个恶性循环的怪圈。民盟领袖林明达说:“民主在这里实施了46年,我们一直碰到相同的恶性循环。这个制度肯定有某些差错。”人们倒要问:是制度有差错,还是水土不服?还是……唉!

Monday, September 8, 2008

沉默的大多数

我们时常听到沉默的大多数,倒底真的有沉默的大多数这么一回事吗?

请读这篇文章:-

柯思仁

《想象的沉默大多数》

  对于那些声称代表“沉默大多数”的人,我总是不免带有一些怀疑的态度。
  
刚过的这个星期的国会,辩论最激烈的莫过于有关刑事法典第377A条文的存废课题。官委议员萧锦鸿向国会提呈请愿书,代表超过2000个签名者,要求国会废除刑事法典中的第377A条文。在这个条文下,男性之间的性行为,无论是在公共场所或私下进行,都被视为犯法。萧锦鸿用了30分钟在国会上发表演讲,陈情表示废除条文的出发点是为了维护对于每一个人的公平与公正。
  
两天的国会会议中,有十几名议员对此议题持反对意见。在这之前,英文的主流媒体也有不少反对的声音。有意思的是,过去的几年里,新加坡的三位总理都曾经公开表示承认与接纳同性恋者的存在,也表示接受同性恋者是天生的说法。反对者常用的理由是,绝大多数的新加坡人是观念保守的,而他们的反对是代表那些保守却沉默的大多数人。
  
沉默的大多数——这样的陈述,本身就不可避免的是一个具有内在矛盾的悖论式命题。
  
假设真的有这么一个群体叫做沉默的大多数,这些人的沉默,可能有两个原因。一个是他们对课题抱着不置可否的态度,并没有强烈的判断或意见。另一个原因则是,他们虽然有意见,不过没有表达的管道,或者他们的声音并没有被听到。如果是前者,那些声称代表他们的人,其实也没有什么意见可以代表,而只是借大多数人之名来表达自己的意见。如果是后者,既然没有声音或者发声的管道,代表者又怎么能够说是在代表这些大多数人的意见?
  
在一个社会中,这些代表者往往是属于精英阶层,受高教育、掌握资源、语言能力强、接受某一种道德观念或意识形态,也因此在社会中是权力掌握者与既得利益者。他们可能因为具有这些条件和能力,在民主社会的选举制度里,或者其他的社会机制中,成为群众的代表。当他们成为合法或合理的代表之后,就进入另外一个社会运作的空间,行使他们作为代表而被授予的权利与权力。
  
如果我们看一看现代中国的历史,20世纪初,那些被称为知识阶层的成员,接受来自西方的某种名为具有现代意义的意识形态,以充满道德感与使命感的态度,认为各阶层的中国人,都应该接受这种意识形态。这里所说的各阶层,尤其指市民、农民、工人等劳力阶层。他们挟持着富于叙述能力的文字,掌握意识形态塑造的话语权,把20世纪初书写为一个追求现代性的时代。这就是我们现在所知道的“五四时代”。
  
鲁迅在《一件小事》中,把人力车夫想象成一个伟大的形象。老舍在《骆驼祥子》中,带着怜悯和批判的态度想象洋车夫祥子。曹禺在《雷雨》中,把煤矿工人塑造成悲剧人物。很长的一段时间里,现代文学史又将这些书写奉为最高道德意识的经典。这些组成社会大多数的人,是存在于这些知识阶层的文字叙述与主观想象之中。他们的生活和感受,究竟是怎样的一种形貌,实际上并不存在于自己的认知与表达之中。
  
五四作家们的人数就是那么多,而他们为这些社会底层的中国人所进行的书写,成为自己无法发声的大多数人的代表。他们也许并不一定自认为这些人的代表,可是,当他们掌握书写的权力,通过书写的实践,而又在历史上被经典化之后,他们的代表身份已经俨然形成。我们今天看这些作为“代表”的作家,是不是也要问一问他们是怎样成为“代表”,而那些沉默的大多数人,又是怎样“被代表”的?

这的确不是一个容易思考的问题。既然这些大多数人都是沉默的,我们又怎么知道他们的意愿和想法?我们又怎么知道他们是不是愿意如此被代表?我们又怎么知道他们的沉默不是一种接受和确认?

Friday, September 5, 2008

民粹治国 V 专业治国

2009年财政预算案被一些人形容为具有政治议程。也有人说是亲民不亲商。

我想更贴切的说法应该是“民粹POPULIST”。

6/9/2008的联合早报有这样一篇不错文章:-

《天怎样才塌下来?》(2008-09-06联合早报)翁德生

  君主时代偶尔出现爱民如子的皇帝,老百姓个个感激涕零,高呼“吾皇万岁”。而民主时代政府领导必须爱民如子,因为人民就是选票。爱民如子是应该的,关键在如何爱民,宠爱疼爱关爱溺爱都是爱,正确的爱最重要。

  民主政治容易迫使政府溺爱人民,政府一旦溺爱人民就是掏空国库讨好选票。

  严格说,民主体制和专业治国是格格不入的。

  西方国家因民主而落入社会福利制陷阱,可见民主和福利制有其因果共生。社会福利制并非不好,毕竟它可以避免贫富悬殊,从而建设和谐社会。问题在于社会福利制一旦影响经济竞争力,代价就是由全体人民埋单。

  影片《钱不够用》以市井眼光看国家社会课题,这类声音最容易取得共鸣。

  任何有良知有能力的政府,都会希望做到让所有人开心,然而社会是不同人组成,所有政策都是顺得哥情失嫂意。试问有没有这种可能性:越坚持治国专业得面对越多责骂,反之就会越获得人民爱戴。果如此,谁还原意维持治国专业?

  归根结底,正确解读民主精神最重要。

  民主是人民当家作主,人民可以委托和罢免政府,人民懂得好好利用这种权力则国泰民安,一旦滥用权力就是国家堕落的不归路。全球化地球村资金人才无边界,哪个国家地区最优惠吸引资金人才决定哪个市场最蓬勃。

  讨好贵族是否意味忽略社会低层?但见许多地区政客炒作煽动此敏感课题,结果往往在帮国家倒忙。因为资本家一走全国就沦为劳动阶级。

人们一般上将好政府定义为:税收少少资助多多。果如是,那么全世界包括资源丰富国家也必破产无疑。好政府必须包括建立好机制,让社会每一份子成为国家资产而非负担。

  我们周遭国家尽是政治上纷纷扰扰,并非偶然而是有其必然性。治国水平合理性无法满足社会大众,官逼民反是古今中外放诸四海,差别在激烈程度而已。

阿末的嚣张-民政党也有份促成

AHMAD ISMAIL 在槟城商界,特别是经营房地产发展业,名字响当当!

他担任槟岛市议员时是呼风唤雨,几乎每个发展商都要认识他,同他打招呼,你在市议会的东西可以顺利得很多。

翻开市议会的纪录,你会发现到他从市议员做起,做完市议员后,被委任为上议员,上议员做完之后又重新回到市议会,意气风发,呼风唤雨。

前几年,当他的市议员资格因为报穷案而受质疑时,他同样的这么的嚣张,没有人可以对付他,简直把槟州政府不当一回事。

2008年选举时,升旗山国会及属下的四个州选区(3个民政,1个马华)都受到这为仁兄的“对待”,怎么样的对待请你们去问问有关的候选人。

在槟州政/商界每个人都知道子根是拿阿末没办法,讲得难听一点就是“怕”阿末,大家都这样的说:“子根的选区在BUKIT BENDERA属下的TANJUNG BUNGA,是要看AHMAD ISMAIL吃饭的。”

是对是错没有人知道,但是在民间言之凿凿。

好了,现在AHMAD ISMAIL又破口大骂子根,骂的很难听,连骗子这样难听的话都出来了,他还下逐客令,叫民政退出国阵。

子根,你要行动了,不然你在大家眼中真的是怕AHMAD ISMAIL,如果你真的怕AHMAD ISMAIL, 华人是不会原谅你,民政党还是收档了。

Sunday, August 31, 2008

must read

油價讀與賭

沈雲驄(jessesam) 2008/09/01 08:39


石油上漲引發全球金融危機,許多人急著知道的卻是如何在危機中獲利。用「讀中帶賭」的習慣看油價,背後潛藏著不容輕忽的麻煩。

看在金融市場眼中,喬治亞與俄羅斯剛剛落幕的八月之戰,是場雙重的意外。一來,是沒有人預料到,雙方長期以來潛藏的矛盾,居然會趁著標榜和平的奧運舉辦期間攤牌;二來,俄羅斯是石油大國,喬治亞境內鋪著聯繫歐亞的重要油管,這場戰爭,居然沒有讓油價暴漲,害得那些在市場上狂賭油價會漲、紛紛下注的投機客們鎩羽而歸。

其實不只有投機客。從美國到台灣,這波石油危機與過去幾次危機最大的不同,就是當閱讀油價,愈來愈多人如今帶著一種「讀」中帶「賭」的心情。70年代那場石油危機爆發之後,政府也好,企業也好,都在關心石油的供需如何恢復平衡,人們在閱讀中企圖理解的是,該怎樣確保自己能取得更多能源、怎樣減少石油的消耗,避免危機重演。

但是這次,除了關心如何在生活中節約能源、節省開銷,看著危機步步進逼,更多人急著知道的,是怎樣在危機中獲利。這些人的心中同時都在問:油價會漲到多少?能源概念股能不能買?能源概念基金會不會賺?

這也就是為什麼,雖然幾年來出版市場上有多本跟石油有關的作品問世,但除了丹尼爾‧尤金的經典《石油世紀》之外,比較受到矚目、賣得比較好的,幾乎都跟投資有關。從高喊油價上100美元的《石油效應》,到進一步喊上200美元的《石油衝擊》,以及多本以能源概念為訴求的理財特刊,都抓住了人們這種讀中帶賭的心情。

問題是,石油市場並不如人們想像中的那麼容易預測。前陣子才不斷飆上歷史新高的油價,這陣子又快速滑落,別說一般散戶,就連華爾街上許多經驗老道的投機客都灰頭土臉,也讓我們看見,用「讀中帶賭」的習慣看油價,背後所潛藏不容輕忽的麻煩。

首先,沒有讀通就亂賭油價,對家庭財富的傷害,將遠高於報酬。就像那些滿懷發財期待走進賭場、最後卻一貧如洗的賭客,在石油市場上鎩羽的投機客,不是對自己贏的機率過度高估,就是壓根沒搞懂遊戲規則。石油怎麼生產的?怎麼運送的?全世界還有多少油?還夠用多久?答不出來,怎能期待自己賭對?雖然,康斯勒在《沒有石油的明天》中說,人類將「被石油的耗盡痛擊」,保羅‧勞勃茲(Pau l Roberts)也在《The End of Oil》中警告,石油的蘊藏量已經「敲響警鐘」,但多年來,從巴西到北極,新發現的油田、新發明的石油開採技術,卻不斷更新各種數據,油價也隨著這些數據的更新,在大漲與大跌之間不斷往返,誰說了準?

其次,石油目前為止仍是人類最倚賴的能源,半世紀來一場又一場的危機反覆在告訴世界:倚賴石油的風險正在提高,對人類的威脅也與日俱增。人們如今應該更關心的,可能不是短期的理財效益,而是長期的資產與經濟安全。倘若油價繼續維持目前的高檔,或是重演瘋狂飆漲的噩夢,你我的工作與生活會受到什麼樣的影響?又該如何因應?

面對這種情勢,埋首於投機市場中,一心只想著賭油價,企圖在漲跌之間賺到暴利,只會讓危機繼續坐大。傑瑞米‧瑞福金(JeremyR ifkin)在《The Hydrogen Economy》中,點出了能源與文明之間的關係,也提醒世人迎戰石油危機的重要性。如果沒有足以替代的新能源科技出現,他說,人類勢必得轉而仰賴更具污染力的能源,環境危機也將如骨牌效應般跟著惡化。

更重要的是,他呼應德國地緣政治學者恩道爾在《石油戰爭》中所說,石油是國際強權競相爭奪的資源,不管現有的石油蘊藏量還足夠讓人類用多久,可以確定,未來的地緣政治仍將繼續因石油而改寫。按照目前多個研究機構的預估,世界會有愈來愈高比率的石油,必須仰賴中東國家的供給。研究發現,20世紀的最後5年,美國與北海原油產區平均每年發現約114億桶,但在本世紀剛結束的前3年,則大幅滑落到只有68億桶。即便是最樂觀的預估,最慢約到了2020年,假如沒有新的替代能源出現,全球勢必更加倚賴中東石油輸出國家,倘若到時候西方國家與回教世界(特別是極端分子)的關係依舊如此緊張,想也知道,石油危機將會更加棘手。怎麼辦?

金融史上,油價向來是一面照映麻煩的鏡子。世界嚴重的麻煩(例如戰爭),往往伴隨油價的上漲;油價上揚,則通常也意味著人類的麻煩即將到來。政府也好,民間也好,都不能對麻煩視而不見,更不能輕率地下注豪賭油價,以為可以把麻煩丟給別人,自己則輕易地在投機市場上得到好處。

我們正「進入一個新的世界,」瑪格內莉在《無所不在的石油經濟》中說,就像「迷途的北極熊四處流浪,想要搞清楚腳下發生的地形變化。」想弄清楚,當然得繼續閱讀。至於賭,別鬧了。

Mass Tourism

Don't Go There
The whole world has the travel bug. And it's ravaging the planet.

By Elizabeth BeckerSunday, August 31, 2008; B01

Did you manage to find someplace for your vacation this summer where you could get away from it all and immerse yourself in nature, or whatever it is that you like to do with a free week or two?

I didn't think so.

It's getting harder and harder. The world has shrunk -- and the tourist legions have exploded. The streets of Paris and Venice are so crowded that you can barely move. Cruise ships are filling harbors and disgorging hordes of day trippers the world over. Towering hotels rise in ever-greater numbers along once pristine and empty beaches.

Thanks to globalization and cheap transportation, there aren't many places where you can travel today to avoid the masses of adventure- or relaxation-seekers who seem to alight at every conceivable site. I used to love going back to my old haunt in a Himalayan hill station where, as a student in India in 1970, I climbed those steep, silent paths and watched langur monkeys swinging in the trees outside my window. No longer. Now, Moussurie is chock-a-block with tourist lodges, garbage and noise; the monkeys are fleeing.

This problem goes far beyond a veteran traveler's complaint that things aren't the way they used to be, or annoyance at sharing the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal with thousands of other photo-snapping tourists loudly asking questions in languages the locals don't understand. What's happening today is of another magnitude.

The places we love are rapidly disappearing. Global tourism today is not only a major industry -- it's nothing short of a planet-threatening plague. It's polluting land and sea, destroying wildlife and natural habitat and depleting energy and natural resources. From Asia to Africa, look-alike resorts and spas are replacing and undermining local culture, and the international quest for vacation houses is forcing local residents out of their homes. It's giving rise to official corruption, wealth inequities and heedless competition. It's even contributing to human rights violations, especially through the scourge of sex tourism.

Look at Cambodia. The monumental temples at Angkor and the beaches on the Gulf of Thailand have made that country a choice destination, especially for Asians, who spent $1 billion there last year. But the foundations of those celebrated temples are in danger of sinking as the 856,000 tourists who every year crowd into Siem Reap, the nearby town of 85,000, drain the surrounding water table.

Meanwhile, Cambodia's well-connected elite has moved to cash in on the bonanza, conspiring with police and the courts to evict peasants from their rural landscape, which is being transformed by high-end resorts catering to wealthy visitors. Cambodia's League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights is compiling files that bulge with photographs of thatched-roof houses being burned down while police restrain their traumatized owners. And at night along the riverfront in the capitol of Phnom Penh, the sight of aging Western men holding hands with Cambodian girls young enough to be their granddaughters is ugly evidence of the rampant sex-tourism trade.

All this came as a shock to me. I've been writing about Cambodia for more than 35 years, but I never considered tourism there a serious subject. But when I went back last November, I couldn't avoid the issue. In three short years, tourism had transformed the country. In every interview, the conversation wandered toward tourism, its potential and its abuses. When I went up to Siem Reap, I found the great hall temple of Angkor as crowded, as a colleague said, as Filene's Basement during a sale. Forget tapping into any sense of the divine.

I began researching the global tourism industry and why journalists have allowed it to fly under the radar. Newspapers, the Web and the airwaves are filled with stories celebrating travel; few examine the effects of mass tourism. As Nancy Newhouse, the former New York Times travel editor, told me: "We never did the ten worst [places to visit], only the ten best."

Most people can't imagine that tourism could be a global menace. Even the word "tourism" sounds lightweight. And travel has always been surrounded by an aura of romance. For centuries, beginning with the first tourists on holy pilgrimages, travel has been about adventure and discovery and escape from the pressures of daily life.

It wasn't until the end of the 20th century that tourism was added to the list of industries measured in the U.S. gross domestic product. And the results were a revelation: About $1.2 trillion of the $13 trillion U.S. economy is derived from tourism.

Tourism has become the stealth industry of the global era. According to the United Nations, the international tourist count in 1960, at the dawn of the modern era of air travel, was 25 million. By 1970, the figure was up to 165 million. Last year, about 898 million people traveled the globe, and the international tourism industry earned $7 trillion. (And those figures don't include people who vacation in their own countries.)

The U.N. World Tourism Organization was established as a special agency five years ago with
the twin goals of keeping track of the tourism industry and figuring out how poor countries, in particular, can take advantage of the tourist boom without causing their own ruin. Geoffrey Lipman, the assistant secretary general of the new organization, has spent his life studying the industry. "Tourism," he told me, "is arguably the largest cluster of industrial sectors in the world" and needs to be included in any international discussions about eliminating poverty or protecting the environment. If properly conducted -- maintaining respect for a country's environment and culture, providing local jobs and a market for local goods -- tourism, the United Nations believes, is easily the best way for a poor nation to earn foreign currency.

There are several promising examples of this philosophy at work. The nonprofit British National Trust offers tourist rentals in restored cottages and historic mansions and then uses the money to buy more land and properties to preserve and protect. The African nation of Namibia, meanwhile, has created what it calls "community-based tourism," which manages more than 25 million acres of wildlife preserves, opening much of the land to tourism -- hunting or photo safaris, birding and white-water rafting -- that employs local residents and has dramatically reduced poaching.

Most of the tourism industry, however, is heading in the opposite direction. Tourism is now responsible for 5 percent of the world's pollution, according to a recent study. Cruise ships are one of the biggest culprits. These floating hotels create three times more pollution per passenger mile than airplanes. Years of cruises have helped spoil the water of the Caribbean, which, according to the United Nations, absorbs half the waste dumped in the world's oceans. Now these ships are venturing into already fragile polar waters. Last year, Norway banned all cruise ships from visiting its region of the Arctic Circle.

Beach erosion has been swift. After the South Asian tsunami in 2004, fishermen were told to move their homes away from the beaches, but luxury hotel chains with clout were allowed to rebuild near the water's edge. In the United States, the upswing in violent hurricanes hasn't put a dent in the number of vacation homes being built by the sea. "Essentially every tropical island is in danger," the National Geographic Society's Jonathan Tourtellot told me.

In poorer nations, unregulated tourist developments have put unbearable strains on scant resources, especially water. High-end tourists often waste more water in a day with multiple daily showers and toilet flushes than some local families use in a month.

Then there's the fear that over time, major tourist destinations will become virtual ghost towns. Residents of Venice went on strike last spring to block licenses for more hotels; the city of canals is now so expensive that many locals have been pushed out, helping cut the permanent population nearly in half. This summer, the British government issued a report on rural living that included a serious warning that the rich were buying so many vacation or second homes in the countryside that many local residents couldn't afford to live in their villages anymore.

But of all the ills brought on by mass travel, none is as odious as sex tourism. The once-hidden trade is now open and global, with ever-younger girls and boys being forced into prostitution. The Department of Justice estimates that sex tourism provides from 2 to 14 percent of the gross national incomes of countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The United States has taken a lead in attempts to eliminate sex tourism, but otherwise, it has stayed out of the tourism debate, mostly viewing tourism as a private matter. Now, however, says Isabel Hill, director of the Commerce Department's Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, the questions raised by mass tourism have become too large to ignore. She hopes that the United States, like so many European countries, will "recognize our limitations and how we have to regulate our resources."

Still, there probably won't be a U.S. secretary for tourism and the environment anytime soon. But don't be surprised if the next international agreement on climate change mentions the role of tourism, or if some countries start regulating tourism along with the environment, because the two go hand-in-hand.

In fact, you'd better hope that they do -- if you ever again want to find that cool vacation spot where you can get away from it all.

ehb47@msn.com
Elizabeth Becker, the author of "When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution," studiedmedia coverage of tourismat Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

人在马华,心在安华

在巴东埔补选期间,接到一位朋友来的短讯:“马华助选员,人在马华,心在安华”。

的确,在补选的十天里面,国阵内的马华同民政党的党员是辛苦的,他们辛苦,不是因为为补选奔波,身疲力倦而苦。他们苦是因为看到巫统种族主义意识高涨,充满种族对立、挑衅。

巫统在补选期间,在马来甘榜,由巫青团主导,说什么槟城已经成为了新加坡共和国、马来人在槟州什么都没有了、说什么民联成立“猪内阁”、说什么反对开放UiTM、说什么华人是在这里寄居。真她妈!

总之,巫统就是这么张牙舞爪,在这种情形下,全力投入助选,不就是爪牙了吗?

我们拒绝成为张牙舞爪的爪牙,虽然说是人在马华,心在安华,这里的“安华”是心想如何“安华人的心”,此“安华”非彼“安华”也。

但是,以目前的情形看来,马华在过去“安华人的心”的做法可能已经不再适合了,过去“安华人的心”很多时候是在被动,特别是和巫统的关系很多时候是处于主从的关系。

马华不可以再这样了,我们要走自己的路,要真的向巫统说“NO”!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

从政者的道德

最近,老翁的“道德污点”论引起了广泛的讨论,我是支持他的论点的。

当然,反对他这个论点者把道德一分为二,提出了“公德”和“私德”论,简单的说,色情光碟只是私德,不影响担任公职。

在支持与反对声中,我想到了在英文中有一句子,叫者“MORAL HIGH GROUND”,翻译成为华文,应该可以说成“道德制高点”。

有道德污点者,不管是私德公德,又怎么会具备“道德制高点”来处理众人的事情呢?

在我国的政治体制里,不管是国阵还是民联,种族气氛浓、又少不了宗教色彩,很多棘手的课题,往往是被赋予“敏感”的标签,需要领袖关起门来私下解决,在这种情形下,参与私下解决问题的领袖的公信力就很重要了。

有道德污点者,即使是私德这方面,无论你怎么“漂白”也不会让人民觉的是有公信力的。

在民间,很久以来就已经有这样的一个流传,历任首相手头上皆握有其内阁成员的“X-FILE”,他就凭者手上的这张王牌,驾驭下面的内阁成员,让他们乖乖的听话。这些X-FILE只是在一个人的手上,就这么具有威力,那么请问当“污点”被烧成CD,广为流传,担任领袖者又有什么MORAL HIGH GROUND来面对同僚、属下官员、人民老百姓?

奉劝那些响往党职、公职高位者,学学陈群川,被私人业务案件缠身后,不只是引退,在往后更不问政事,这样才对嘛!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

再读这篇

Two Countries, Different Aims

By Shashi TharoorSunday, August 24, 2008; B02

It has become rather fashionable these days to speak of India and China in the same breath. These are the two big countries said to be taking over the world, the new contenders for global eminence after centuries of Western domination, the Oriental answer to generations of Occidental economic success. Some even speak of "Chindia," as if the two nations were joined at the hip in the international imagination.

But if anyone wanted confirmation that such twinning is preposterous, all they'd have to do is look at the medals tally at the Beijing Olympics. China ranks first, with a glittering stash of 47 gold medals. You have to strain your eyes past such stepchildren of the global family as Jamaica, Belarus, war-torn Georgia, collapsing Zimbabwe and even what used to be called Outer Mongolia before you stumble across my native India, in 50th place as of this writing with precisely three medals, one gold and two bronze.

This is no surprise. China has set about systematically striving for Olympic success since it re-entered global competition after years of isolation, but India has remained mostly complacent about its lack of sporting prowess. Where China lobbied hard for the right to host the Olympics within two decades of its return to the Games, India has rested on its laurels after hosting the Asian Games in New Delhi in 1982. This is widely believed to leave it even farther behind in the competition for Olympic host-hood than it was two decades ago.

Where China embarked on what its sports leaders call "Project 119," a program devised specifically to boost the country's Olympic medal standings (the number 119 refers to the number of golds awarded at the 2000 Sydney Games in what Sports Illustrated calls "the medal-rich sports of track and field, swimming, rowing, sailing and canoe/kayak"), Indians wondered whether they'd be able to crack the magic ceiling of two, the highest number of medals their giant country has ever won. Where China, eyeing the number of medals awarded in kayaking, decided to create a team to master a sport hitherto unknown to the Middle Kingdom, India didn't even petition successfully to have the Games include the few sports it does play well, such as polo, kabbadi (a form of tag-team wrestling) or cricket, which was played in the Olympics of 1900 and has been omitted ever since. Where China has maintained its dominance in table tennis and badminton and developed new strengths in non-traditional sports such as rowing and shooting, India has seen its once-legendary invincibility in field hockey fade with the introduction of AstroTurf, to the point that India's team failed to even qualify for Beijing.
Forget "Chindia" -- the two countries barely belong in the same sporting sentence.

What has happened at the Olympics speaks to a basic difference in the two countries' systems. China, as befits a communist autocracy, approached the task of dominating the Olympics with top-down military discipline. It determined its objective, drew up a program, brought considerable state resources to bear, acquired state-of-the-art technology and imported world-class foreign coaches. India, by contrast, approached these Olympics as it had every other, with its usual combination of amiable amateurism, bureaucratic ineptitude, half-hearted experimentation and shambolic organization.

That's simply the way we are. It's the creative chaos of an all-singing, all-dancing Bollywood musical vs. the perfectly choreographed precision of the Beijing Games' opening ceremonies. If China wants to build a new six-lane expressway, it can bulldoze its way past any number of villages in the thing's path; in India, if you want to widen a two-lane road, you could be tied up in court for a dozen years over compensation payments. In China, the government establishes national priorities, then funds them; in India, priorities emerge from seemingly endless discussions and arguments among myriad interests, and funds have to be scrounged where they might. China's budget for preparing its athletes for these Games alone probably exceeded India's expenditure on all Olympic training in the last 60 years.

But where China's state-owned enterprises remain the most powerful motors of the country's development, India's private sector -- ducking around government obstacles and bypassing the stifling patronage of the state -- has transformed the fortunes of the Indian people. So it proved again in Beijing: The wrestlers, tennis players, boxers and weightlifters who made up the bulk of the Indian contingent, accompanied by the inevitable retinue of officials, returned with two bronzes among them, while the country's only gold -- in men's 10-meter air-rifle shooting -- was won by a young entrepreneur with a rifle range in his own backyard who had no help whatsoever from the state. Abhinav Bindra is, at 25, the CEO of a high-tech firm, a self-motivated, bespectacled sharpshooter and an avid blogger. He is, in short, a 21st-century Indian. At one level, it's not surprising that he should have won India's first individual gold in any Olympics since a transplanted Englishman competed in Indian colors in the 1900 Games. India is the land of individual excellence, despite the limitations of the system. In China, individual success is the product of the system.

My fellow Indians excel wherever individual talent is given free rein. The country has produced world-class computer scientists, mathematicians, biotech researchers, filmmakers and novelists, but the only Indian sportsmen who have worn the title of world champion in recent years have been a billiards cueist and a chess grandmaster.

Come up with a challenge that requires high levels of organization, strict discipline, sophisticated equipment, systematic training and elastic budgets, and Indians quail. This remains as true inside the Olympic stadium as outside it. When China built the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, it created a 400-mile-long reservoir that necessitated displacing a staggering 1.2 million people, all accomplished in 15 years and without much fuss (except for the usual silenced naysayers and jailed malcontents) in the interests of generating electricity; in attempting its Narmada Dam project, aiming to bring irrigation, drinking water and power to millions, India has spent 34 years (so far) fighting environmental groups, human rights activists and advocates for the displaced all the way to the Supreme Court, while still being thwarted in the streets by protesters from nongovernmental organizations such as the Save Narmada Movement.

That is how it should be: India is a fractious democracy; China is not. China will win the Olympic medals for many Games to come. But India, perhaps, might win some hearts.
tharoor.assistant@gmail.com

Shashi Tharoor is a former undersecretary general of the United Nations and the author, most recently, of "The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cellphone: Reflections on India in the 21st Century."