CHRISTMAS has passed by and the year is quickly drawing to a close.
Some lucky people are even more quickly disappearing off on holiday. Another Christmas with plenty of old and new problems.
We live in a crazy world where propaganda is considered news to maintain power and those who use even a moderate amount of critical thinking are considered a threat by any ruling regimes who worship power and money and that means that they will never have enough.
Any crisis including the pandemic is good for the invisible hands who know how to use it to grow and expand their power under the guise of something. I am not a conspiracy nut.
People need to understand that nothing is permanent. Even the top end of a pyramid is vulnerable to gravity.
You know damn well what I mean. At the risk of sounding like a broken track record, those who are too lazy to think have to understand that governments can no longer protect them from harsh economic reality.
Their elected or unelected politicians are not going to help them. This is also a reflection of the increase of concentration of wealth that leaves even the wealthy feeling poor and the poor scavenging for food in rubbish bins.
Giving to charity does not require a lot of disposable income. I contribute regularly to a soup kitchen to feed the poor families in addition to my other charitable work.
Comfortable life
Switching gears, living inheritance is a cause for concern for retirees in Malaysia where 63% of retirees are worried about not being able to support family or friends financially, according to an HSBC report back in 2015.
It said Malaysia has the highest percentage of concern for this concern in the world, followed by Brazil and Mexico at 58%, while Singapore (54%).
So, what about today? What do you think? Wow, in a discussion, a client reviewed my very long-term forecast on the local currency published in an article back in 2012 when the ringgit was flirting around 3 against the greenback.
In that article, I targeted the next major hurdle at 4.50 and the mother of all resistance levels at 5.50. I got it so wrong that we almost hit 4.50 (4.47) a couple of years later. The sh*t will hit the fan at 5.50.
We will get there. For the middle class who used to enjoy a comfortable standard of living, the new model of “working till you drop” has become a necessity because life is getting very harsh.
They accepted the fact that soaring inflation will be the price they will have to pay. In some parts of the world – as rage mounts against rising food prices – corruption and state oppression, the poor will eventually take their frustration to the street.
Imagine a “modern” country like Malaysia, home to the world’s second tallest building is completely blacked out with dozens of military armoured personnel carriers and tanks as well as soldiers on foot deployed around a number of key government buildings in the capital to battle thousands of protesters who besieged the offices in riots.
Before you want to accuse me of spoiling your Christmas or New Year party, it is my wild imagination and is not going to happen.
Calamity
Malaysia has been hit by the worst floods in decades. I have been through many things during my long and tortured life. But I have never experienced floods this bad in this country.
Thank you, hallelujah, for some government action – finally. Nobody should make any noise. The majority of us do not want to think and take responsibility for our political choices.
Like the previous regime, this Government has not made any economic sense so far. It survives or depends on appeals to race and religion to hold the centre together.
I am a hard-hitting, equal-opportunity critic toward either liberals or conservatives so do not drag me into a political fight.
Circling back to markets, everyone has an opinion on the outlook for 2022. The dead killer suddenly came back to life for one last scare. I have been wrong on the markets in the final weeks of 2021 with unusually high volatility but there have been plenty of years when I have been right.
Life is too short to focus solely on short-term price action. A belated Merry Christmas! — Dec 28, 2021
YH Wong is Senior Partner (Asia) at Satori Consultancy (MUR) Ltd and has over two decades of experience in the financial services industry.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
