Can A Venezuela Happen In Malaysia? It Is Happening Already To An Extent.

Venezuela has collapsed.  Venezuela still has the world's largest oil reserves - larger than Saudi Arabia. Yet look at Venezuela today.

Here are some stories about Venezuela.  

1.   The first  article is truncated from the New York Times here.

MARACAIBO, Venezuela 

Zimbabwe collapse under Robert Mugabe. 
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1989.
Cuba’s disastrous unraveling in 1990s.

crumbling of Venezuela’s economy outpaced them all

Venezuela single largest economic collapse outside of war in 45 years

really hard to think of human tragedy of this scale outside war
touchstone of disastrous policies 

similar devastation caused by war, like Libya, Lebanon 

retailers make dozens of trips to bank to deposit 

several kilos of worthless notes

Venezuela, Latin America’s wealthiest country, not shattered by armed conflict

poor governance, corruption, misguided policies of Maduro and Chávez
fueled runaway inflation, shuttered businesses, brought country to knees

(OSTB : This is not unlike Malaysia. Disastrous stupid policies like GST, Minimum Wages, no free market, oligopolies, monopolies, GLCs, cronies, APs, quotas, licenses, restrictions, oligopoly banking system, corruption, cronyism, etc.)

Venezuela economy plummeted, armed gangs took control of towns
public services collapsed, purchasing power reduced to 2 kg of flour a month

butchers hit by blackouts sell decomposing meat by sunset

laborers scavenge garbage for recyclable plastic

Maduro blames widespread hunger on US

economists say recession began years before US sanctions
which at most accelerated the collapse.

population in deepening humanitarian crisis
each month brings record lows.

Venezuela has world’s largest proven oil reserves
oil output fallen faster than Iraq after American invasion in 2003

10% population fled
setting off Latin America’s biggest refugee crisis

hyperinflation reached 10 million percent this year 

total collapse in consumption

drop in Venezuela’s economic output steepest decline by any country 

Venezuela’s GDP shrunk 62% since 2013 (Maduro came to power)

capital Maracaibo blackout - one week of darkness 
500 businesses ransacked

Power sporadic, water and gasoline shortages 
towns without functional banking systems and cellphone coverage 

stone quarries idle since robbers stole cables connecting to grid 

economic collapse decimated meat industries that supplied country

Power cuts idled local slaughterhouse
Armed gangs extort, rustle cattle from surviving ranchers

slaughterhouse idled by power cuts.

2. The second comment here was obviously written in India. The subject is also Venezuela.

Have you heard about a country called Venezuela? It is a big country. Bigger than the Indian states of UP, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, Bengal and Orissa combined.

And how much is the population? Only 35 million ... .. less than the population of Delhi NCR ........ God has given everything to Venezuela.  Fertile land, abundant rain, hundreds of small rivers and thousands of  miles long beach.

In spite of having such fertile land and so much water, there is so much hunger in this country today that men have virtually turned into cannibals. There is nothing like farming of crops, fruits & vegetables,  dairy, poultry, fishing, etc. in this country.

Even if they can't grow  wheat, rice, and vegetables for such a big country, there are grazing  areas of millions of hectares. Does Venezuela not even have a few cows,  buffaloes, sheep and goats to graze and provide meat to its starving population? There is so much abundance of fish in the rivers and ocean.  Yet Venezuela is still starving.  

The situation of inflation has reached  such levels that if you take a bag of Bolivar to a store, you will not  get even a pocketful of bread ....... Inflation rate is 1,698,488%  compared to last year. Today you will get 3607 Venezuelan Bolivars in 
exchange for an Indian rupee.

You may be surprised to know that Venezuela also has the largest crude oil reserves in the world, larger than Saudi Arabia.

You would also be surprised to know that Venezuela was a developed and prosperous nation just 20 years ago, but the wrong policies of its leaders turned a prosperous nation into a beggar in just 20 years.   Today the situation is so bad that many Venezuelan women have had to  resort to prostitution for just a piece of bread.

A good leader can turn his country into Singapore in 20 years and an incompetent leader can turn his country into a Venezuela.

What was the mistake of Venezuelan leaders?

After World War II, when there was tremendous demand for oil in the world and the prices were skyrocketing, Venezuela was having a gala  time. In 1945, the country was making 1 million barrels of oil per day.

The government started distributing free stuff to its citizens. 

Every  service in the country was government provided and every service was  free. In exchange for oil, goods came from all over the world; ration,  cereals, fruits, vegetables, medicines, machinery and textiles,  everything was imported in exchange for the oil, and the government gave  its citizens everything free.

In the 50's and 60's, when the whole world was working hard to increase  manufacturing productivity, in Venezuela, not even a needle was   produced.  They even imported commodities like cabbage and tomatoes from  Europe.

Venezuela is a very beautiful country. Yet they don't have a tourism industry.  Venezuelans were so hostile to tourists that if a tourist  ever went there by mistake, it is said that nobody would offer him even  a glass of water. Usually in such countries foreigners come from abroad  looking of employment, but since there was free service in this country,  all the parties and even the people of Venezuela were against the entry  of foreigners into the country.  Their thought was, why should 
foreigners take advantage of our free service.

The result was that the citizens did not do anything for a living,  neither farming, nor any other industry, and the government did not let  even labor to be imported from abroad to let industries develop.  Therefore, there is no development in the country, even tourism. It is  said that in the 70s, if a traveler came to visit Venezuela they would  tell him to f**k off.

Then one day the price of crude oil started falling.  The government  owned oil company was PDVSA, and the government, typical of a communist  government, told the company to give jobs to everyone.  

The company told  that it does not need more employees.  But the government insisted on it  and gave at least one man of every family a job in the government oil  company PDVSA where he did not do any work and took home a free, fat  salary.

Then the price of oil fell further and the oil company started incurring  huge losses.  As a result, providing free stuff to the population became  impossible. Slowly every commodity became scarce.  35 million  freeloaders who had not done any work in life, started looting. Girls  got into prostitution. The socialist government still did not learn.  It  started taking loans to continue providing free stuff to its population.

Today Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, is the world's most unsafe  city, where people slaughter, and girls sell their body for just a piece  of bread.  One plate of food costs 1.5 million Bolivar.

How can such a large country not even produce wheat rice for just (35 million) people?  Today if the Venezuelan government invites  only 1000 farmers from India's Punjab and gives them the necessary  machinery, then in just 6 months our farmers will produce more than  enough grains, vegetables, fruits and milk to feed the entire country of  Venezuela.  In India, the district of Kapurthala alone produces so much  melon that the whole of North India's demand for melons is met from it.

The question is, why did the government teach its citizens to be such  freeloaders? Who made the people of the country so incompetent and  irresponsible? When there is so much hunger in the country, even if the  people throw seeds of fruits and vegetables in their backyard, then in  the next two months there will be so much fruits and vegetables that  there will be no hunger. People have been hungry for the last 10 years.  Yet, neither government learns, nor the people.

Any party that encourages" free" is dangerous to the country.


My comments :  

The same thing will ultimately happen in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies (UAE, Kuwait etc), Brunei (perhaps more slowly because of the small population) and Malaysia (mostly to the Malay / bumiputra segment but it will affect the whole country).

Its 9:00 am on a moody but fantastic Sunday morning. I just spent two hours doing yardwork. Sorting out some 'piper betle' aka betel leaves aka daun sireh. 

By the way that 'Jumanji plant' in my front porch  is called an elephant creeper that is native to India. It is also known by other names like Hawaiian baby woodrose, "adhoguda" and woolly morning glory.  Thank you for sharing your information.

Back to the topic at hand - I really hope that our private sector business people are reading this particular post.  For those of you who are so inclined please forward this post to any of your friends who are business people.

By business people I mean real business people. Not the GLC type of fake business people or the projek dan kontrak buta types who do not know anything about real business.

I have said this before - the government, the government sector and the Malay bumiputra economy are falling down.  

Reading about the collapse of spoon fed Venezuela above the same thing is already happening here in Malaysia. Here is just one example :

KUALA LUMPUR (May 17)
bumi contractors at risk of collapse 
involvement in abandoned PR1MA projects
Out of 100 contractors involved in PR1MA, 30 bumiputera
half of them dormant projects, outstanding payments 
facing financial constraints,  received bank notices

The real business people, the real private sector that has learnt to compete and survive this far now has to take a 'national service' perspective. 

Despite all the fools in government and despite all the unworkable policies, the constraints, the bullying and the corruption you must go out and expand your businesses as much as you can, make as much money as you can. 

Not just for your own wealth and happiness but to save the country.  

You must distance and divest yourselves from being dependent on government and government policy.  All those who are dependent on the government are going to get burnt. They are not going to get anywhere.

The Internet, IT and the super connected world allows you to actually bypass the stifling government.  That means increasing your connectivity and networking overseas. 

As I said before when other people are falling down or slacking on their job, then you must step in to take up the slack.  And you might as well profit from it as well.

Take the failed PRIMA housing scam. It was a corrupted scam perpetrated by that JJ fellow.  They promised hundreds of thousands of houses. Those houses are not going to be built.  And the bumiputra contractors involved in PRIMA projects are going bust.  (How come the non bumi contractors are NOT going bust? Satu bini saja kut? Less household expenses.) 

But those "affordable" houses are still needed by the people. Someone has to build them and build them to the peoples' affordability.

May I suggest that the real private sector developers sit down together and think about WHAT IS NEEDED for you to build and sell those affordable houses (and still make a profit.)  Rule No 1 : If it is not profitable DONT DO IT. Lets live in the real world ok.

You must focus some "national service" time to make this happen. We cannot depend on the government fools. Yes they are fools. 

In my first book To Digress A Little (2005) I suggested that all land around KL (and by extension in all urban areas) be automatically classified as development land (commercial and residential).   

Meaning, by default all land within a certain radius of urban centers (depending on size) should be changed to commercial and residential use. 

This will save an  enormous amount of time, hassle and corruption money required to convert land for development purposes. And because of the Time Value of Money, this will greatly reduce the development costs.

(But land is a state matter. That is why I feel we should increase the scope of the Federal government and reduce the role of the State governments.  We have to rewrite the Federal Constitution - but that is another matter.)

I am just thinking out of the box. Thinking is free, remember? 

This is what I mean by the private sector having to take up the slack when the government is falling down.

Oil revenue is weakening, palm oil is now toxic (low prices, low profitability). Oil prices will not likely shoot up again and because of bio-fuel legislation in the West and Japan, palm oil prices are now linked to crude oil prices.  If crude goes down, palm oil will also go down - with some lag time.

The private sector is also run by human beings. By you, dear reader, if you are a businessman or entrepreneur. And you are Malaysians. 

You have an obligation to help your country and save your country. The country that sustained us and will continue to sustain us all. 

Dont depend on the government. They are screwing up the country and they will even burn it down.  They will take Malaysia down the same path as Venezuela. It is happening already. 

But do not just stand there and watch them burn the country down. Do something about it.

Work harder, expand your business, go international, export more, earn foreign exchange, use the latest technologies, whatever business you are involved in do your best and be the best.  You have to help save the country.