That said, as mentioned, cash transfers to compensate for subsidy rationalisation address symptoms, not causes. The key challenge we need to tackle remains a cost-effective, reliable and well-connected inter- and intra-city public transport system.
All in Policy
That said, as mentioned, cash transfers to compensate for subsidy rationalisation address symptoms, not causes. The key challenge we need to tackle remains a cost-effective, reliable and well-connected inter- and intra-city public transport system.
But now, if we plug these unprecedented initial conditions into Chaos Theory, where weather patterns can fluctuate immensely, the logical inference is that we will see ever more variable and unpredictable weather conditions even in seemingly “stable” zones.
Many key ingredients of economic development require long-term planning, a greater tolerance for the long-term (patience) means that these ingredients may get to be fully cooked as well.
Therefore, it’s never “only the private sector should be in business” or “the government should always intervene in business”. Reality is far more complex and there are certainly pockets of market failures where the government does have a more direct role in economic activities.
The point of the article was to figure out, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner, some better indicators for Malaysia’s economic development as opposed to the more popular ones. And so, in a further adaptation of Blattman’s concept, I have proposed a further 10 “indie” development indicators.
…maybe we can go some ways into setting ourselves up for the future amid a really trying global environment and, maybe unlike my theory about my own fortunes, it can be all uphill from here! And if we are even more lucky, we might come out of this far, far stronger. Maybe we could be like Mike.
Survival requires adaptability and agility, making full use of all the tools in our toolbox, instead of being a hammer treating everything as nails. And our longer-term future depends on our ability to grow, change and innovate — we should take a cue from nature and be as creative as we can be.
The idea of a level playing field between developed and developing countries is not historically just. Things were unfairly titled towards these rich countries in history. We need to re-tilt it back towards the rest of us.
The reality of economic development is that, however we feel about them, elites exist and the elite bargain does matter. And an elite bargain that accelerates economic growth may not necessarily be the same bargain that maintains that growth.
The release of the dinosaurs into the world is very much akin to the massive monetary expansion from quantitative easing in developed countries, particularly the US, the eurozone nations and Japan, since the global financial crisis.
Power distance and our “VIP culture”, which may have worked in different instances in the past or indeed in the present for a given objective, is unlikely to be conducive to future economic development objectives