Penang once upon a time one of the most beautiful island in the world. A Beng is one of the most common name in the island. This site is dedicated to all friends to share views, experiences, comments, etc initiated from this small eyes, 'small' person & small island.
This is the picture of a mother of seven children during The Big Depression in 1929.
Here is some description about the Depression:
The Great Depression took place from 1930 to 1939. During this time the prices of stock fell 40%. 9,000 banks went out of business and 9 million savings accounts were wiped out. 86,00 businesses failed, and wages were decreased by an average of 60%. The unemployment rate went from 9% all the way to 25%, about 15 million jobless people.
I am not an economist and do not know if this will happen this round. Talking with my senior business partner and he gave me a simple formula,
After a few months of "sai nai" and "merajuk" to its big brother UMNO, KTK back to its '3 legs' shows again. He anoounced that Gerakan will remain as BN components without any official debate. The new official President said that the "emotional reaction" by its 60% of members that originally intend to leave BN had been cooled down. Subsequently he called the outgoing PM as "Father of Democracy", forgetting that his picture was just torn by one the members not long ago and until now, no apology is made.
Gerakan will of course made their own call to determine their future. However, if Gerakan intention is to regain power in Penang, I am of opinion they face more obstacles as compared of they contest by their own.
1) It will be a difficult dream for Gerakan to gain back CM of Penang even if BN won Penang in the next election. Besides Pakatan Rakyat and the penang people, do you think UMNO and especially MCA will let the CM post to fly away again.
2) Do you think Gerakan will be given the most numbers of seats again in the next election, looking at they lost all in 2008.
3) If Gerakan sincerely want to stand up where it fell down, they can only depend on themselves to work hard and alone as they did in 1969. In case they gain sufficient influential supports again in the next election, then they will have more negotiation power.
I would think that KTK could forget about to reform the coalition and as for "Father of Democracy", I would agreed with Khoo Kay Peng that he is more an accidental agent of change.
4) High Speed Train
Even Taiwan has their high speed (bullet) train now. The train travel at about 350km/hr from Taipei to Kaohsiung taken about 90 minutes. This is what most of the Malaysian dream for (as compared to KLCC, KLIA and many other white elephant projects) if one day we can have the same from Padang Besar/Alor Setar to Johor Bahru, via all the major cities.
I travelled to a few countries recent years, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, East China, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Jakarta, etc. It was noticed that in terms of infrastructure, the electric train system is the most cost effective way to link up all cities and people. Of course, unless we still satisfy compared ourselves with Thailand, Vietnam, Jakarta, etc.
About double tracks or whatever, we are still talking, talking, talking,............... probably still could not decide which crony should get it.
But the aggressive & dynamic Taiwanese created a magic in their economic activities either in high-tech technologies and agricultural.
Similary, we in Malaysia, free from all the above disaster, also talked about high-tech industries, high-tech agricultural, MSC, etc., etc., for last many years. But now still hope and depending on foreign investment to boost our economy.
In short, there are many things to study in Taiwan.
However, I still feel that Malaysia is a better and more beautiful country. What we need are just be more hardworking, be more practical, be cleaner and smarter government management and get lost all political warlords.