Mahathir’s words

THE RINGGIT AND THE DOLLAR
By Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on May 12, 2011 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

///13. To remain ahead in wealth the Americans and Europeans invented a new market – the money market. They invented ways of making money from money. These they call products although they cannot be eaten or used.///–Mamakthir

The universal truth is that nobody pays if he does not need what he gets. If the money market allows the operators to make money, it simply means that the market satisfies the needs of the users. The items utilized might be money, and just like movie, it cannot be eaten or used, but it can be watched.

///18. Other ways of making money were invented. Hedge funds, carry trade, currency trade, mergers and acquisitions, investment in ’emerging markets’ (formerly known as developing countries), junk bonds, securitised mortgage, commercial paper, short selling, index funds, sub-prime loans, private equity funds, repo market, structured investment vehicles, etc etc

19. Any of these things can give huge profits. For the astute players any of these things can make them millionaires or billionaires overnight, practically overnight.///–Mamakthir

It sounds so simple and if it is true, why wouldn’t bankers in Malaysia become billionaires overnight? Is it because only Christians and Jews are entitled to be billionaires?

///20. The money market products yield nothing substantial. They create no jobs, no tangible products, no trade in goods or services, no spin-offs in terms of business, no transportation of goods by land, sea or air.///– Mamakthir

If the traders make billions as claimed, then that billion dollars are certainly going to be involved in other economic activities, besides the activities involved in earning those billions. That cannot be accomplished by simple clicking on computers.

///21. Yet the size of the transactions in monetary terms is mind-boggling. The trade in currencies is said to amount to four (4) trillion US dollars a day. It is the size of the total German productivity for a year. Yet no jobs are created, no goods or services are produced, no movement of anything is seen.///– Mamakthir

Even collecting money from the banks would need hands. What is not seen cannot be proof that nothing is involved.

///22. Of course the people involved in the trade make billions of dollars. Operating out of tax free havens, they report to no one and pay no tax.

23. The money market players and the billions they make contribute to the high GDP and the Per Capita incomes of America and Europe.///–Mamakthir

Lucky are the nationals of the countries where they can create a smokeless industry which make much more than others which earn money trading off their environment. Tax policy is the proprietary right of the governments concerned.

///24. Then came the collapse. The bubble bursts. And there was nothing spilling from the burst bubbles.///– Mamakthir

The burst bubbles show that the bubbles were valuable until they burst. The criticism should be on why the bubbles had to burst. It was the money market which had sustained the prosperity leading to 2008. Without the money market, the level of world economy would be lower than what had been over the past decades. Some people prefer to experience good time however transient. Others prefer not to be spoilt if good days are not sustainable. The world has done away with absolute rulers who decide for others.

///25. The money market players know nothing about other business, about the production of goods and service, about real trade in these things. Actually all of them have become poor.

26. And so they resort to printing money, to remain rich. But the money they print is as valuable as toilet paper. ///–Mamakthir

Why does Malaysia still claim to have foreign reserves when they comprise of toilet paper?