Tuesday, March 10, 2009

malaysiakini and MORE STIMULUS SPENDING

By now the penny has dropped on Bank Negara Malaysia that indeed we are headed are a recession; probably by the second or third quarter of 2009.
I last wrote about the first stimulus package here in November. Just like how the USA has thrown billions into their economic black hole, we too are going to spend lots of money caused by poor planning and wasteful projects.
malaysiakini has this article on how one leader describes the situation - Anwar: Global slump hitting our economy hard .
Why should anyone be surprised? Malaysia is one of the top trading companies of the world - the only surprise is that we had so many top leaders in economic denial.
Even 6 months ago we approved visas for another 70,000 foreign workers and now will cancell that according to this NST article Visas for 70,000 Bangladeshi workers to be revoked. I wonder why the visas were approved in the first place given the deteriorating global economic situation?
Was it to enable the recruiting agencies to earn their fees? What about those who have resigned from jobs in order to come to Malaysia?
I suggest the Manpower Ministry should be the proper authority to control such work permits with the Home Ministry merely checking the application for security matters.

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