Let the youth come up with viable solutions

 

 It’s funny when young people accuse the baby boomers and even Gen Xers of ruining the economy for them in Malaysia. I would like them to explain how the economy was wrongly handled.

Was it a bad investment sometime in the 1980s? Or was it a default on some big international loan in the 1990s? Maybe there was a wrong move made somewhere when subsidies were implemented or taken away in the 2000s?

Frankly, I can’t understand how any generation would intentionally ruin the economy for anyone. Take a look at how things are at the moment. It is true that the cost of living is high and the income level is not proportionate.

It is also true that big purchases, such as homes, are a bit out of reach for many people these days. But think about it. This is affecting everyone, including the boomers and Gen Xers.

Maybe all of this is coming from a very general perspective. The cost of living is high so the economy is bad. Purchasing homes or even vehicles can be so expensive that it is unaffordable for many people, so this also means the economy is bad.

But I would like to call attention to the fact that the cost-of-living issues are affecting everyone. The economy isn’t just bad for Malaysia. Almost the entire world is suffering.

Sure, there are different degrees of how bad the economy is for different countries. Some are going through it worse than others and some are doing a bit better.

Overall, the global economy is in a bad state. Almost every government is repeating the same spiel to their people. My two cents’ worth is that right now, it is the feeling that the economy is not working for the people.

Diminished buying power

I recently listened to an interview with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the “Freakonomics” podcast.

He said millennials and Gen-Zers lament that they can’t do what their parents and grandparents did decades ago. Finishing their studies, getting a good job, getting a loan to buy a house, and just working to live a decent life doesn’t seem to be achievable today.

Trudeau has a point. The situation many years ago was different. It was much more possible for my parents, who are boomers, to immediately buy a house as soon as they got decent jobs after they graduated from universities.

The salaries they made as fresh graduates gave them much more buying power. I am a Gen Xer and even when I started working after university, it was still possible for me to save up for a downpayment to buy an apartment within two years.

It was definitely a bit tighter and tougher for me to do so as compared to my parents, but it was still possible. Now, an average apartment or house costs triple the amount it did 25 years ago when I started working, but starting salaries remain the same.

One thing Trudeau mentioned in his interview is that we need to listen to the youth, and I believe in that too. We need fresh and new ideas because the situation today is new and different.

We can’t continue to implement old methods in today’s world and hope it will improve things. So boomers and Gen Xers need to be open to listening to the millennials and Gen Zers.

I really do believe that the youth are the key to changing everything for the better. No country or economy can ever improve without the contribution of its youth. But the youth need to come up with viable solutions.

I understand that the strength and power of youth is their rebellious and dissenting spirit, and it is okay for them to get angry, criticise and protest. But it needs to be complemented by action and solutions too (that’s why I had so much hope for Muda, but alas).

Time to shake things up

One of the first things we need to do today is provide more affordable ways for people to own homes. One simple way to solve this could be to build more houses and housing infrastructure.

We need to change our mindset that owning real estate is a financial investment. Owning a home should be about having a decent place to live and not making millions of ringgit when the value appreciates in a few years.

We need to redistribute wealth in Malaysia so the top-bracket of income earners need to be taxed accordingly. It may not be a popular move, but it has to be done.

But of course, imposing tax isn’t the only way. We need to relook and take advantage of our natural resources. We are an oil-and-gas-producing country and we need to learn to maximise this.

We need to look at better ways to harvest our minerals and also crops like oil palm. We can implement better environmental policies so that we can balance out what we can harvest and process, put a price on pollution and repay in carbon pricing.

We can also take advantage of better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices and at the moment, the youth can help lead us in all of these efforts.

No society can improve without their youth taking an active role. Like I said, the youth have the vigour, energy and spirit to make changes and it is important that they stay focused and follow through the whole process.

Protests and demonstrations can be exciting, but there needs to be continuous action even after the adrenaline rush ends because that’s when the real work begins. And to the boomers and Gen-Xers, start engaging and listening. - Mkini

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ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.