Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Why are we poor??

Why are we poor??


During the last general election in Malaysia, I think a lot of you must have heard that we are far behind in term of income as compared to Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. In fact, about 30 years ago, Malaysians are getting more than their counterparts in Taiwan and Korea, so what actually happens that makes us lack behind our neighbours in Asia? I think all of you have your own answers and I must leave these to be answered by economists and politicians.
However, I notice a few important observations and I think you may want to know,

1) The easiest money you can make in Earth is ?????

The easiest money you can make is not from your parent, your grandy or your boy or girlfriend, you can get the easiest money from tourists! If Malaysians want to make more money, we have to attract more tourists to come and of course foreigners to live in this country. Look at Singapore and Hong Kong, there are so many exparts working in their countries and paying income tax for the government. Take a look at Malaysia, we are the World number one ( Malaysia Boleh!) country to have so many unskilled workers. So what do we get? We get nothing, no income tax, no nation-building but only more crimes, infectious diseases and flooding of workers in our public health facilities!

2) Our mentality has to change

There is no short cut in this world, you want more money, you have to make it. Malaysians like short cut, we give ‘duit kopi’ to settle our traffic offenses, we pay ‘under table money’ to get licences. Wake up, Malaysians, think of a way or a system to make your own money, you will lose the first few years but you will learn slowly and become an adult to survive at your own feet without subsidy!

3) ‘ Know how’ and not ‘ know who’

I always impressed with how the system works in this country. Almost everything in this country is politics-related. We always believe that money making is ‘knowing who’ rather than ‘ knowing how’, therefore, we spend more time making friends rather than improving our business strategy. You will never succeed if you are a giant in this ‘kampung’ and never expand your business overseas. I always believe that a great business is a business earning other people money and not your own people money!

4) Be prepared to pay more before you get more

Malaysians are stingy, we want the cheapest workers in the world even though they know nothing. We want labour intensive business and we are never prepared to pay people more. People around the world are progressing even the Chinese in China, but we are holding back our steps to go further. We do not have minimum wage for workers simply because we want to hire more cheap foreign workers!

5) ‘Middle man’ culture
Malaysia is full of middle man. Our people are not getting the money they are supposed to get because of middle man. We should get the middle man out of our business model especially middle man that does not contribute!