Newspaper cutting from Cakap Tak Serupa Bikin blog
Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Minister of Finance II claimed in Penang Saturday that the Per Capita Income rose by 40% throughout the premiership of Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. With the economy in such a pathetic state for the past few years, does that make sense?
Mind you, this is not the first strange economic numbers churned by the Treasury. Last year saw an avalanche of ridiculously big numbers – RM1 trillion total trade, unfathomable amount of projects and planned spending, and the world’s first ranged economic forecast for Budget 2008.
That’s last year and Cakap Tak Serupa Bikin blog made a good compilation of those Carl Sagan-ic numbers. Remember his trademark “…billions and billions of stars and planets ...”.
Since last year, economic observers may have been seeing stars from the dizzying height of economic spinning. It has gotten worse. The MoF claimed that Malaysia is the world’s 6th most competitive nation, but it turned out Malaysia’s rank worsened by 1 to 23. Don’t tell me someone wrongly advised the MoF. Anyone with any economic common sense will know it is ridiculous!
The misleading information and factual errors coming out from Minister of Finance I & II is putting the country in danger. General Election or not, I am not about to take this crap. This calls for the job of the Economic Myth Buster!Nor Yakcop claimed that per capita income rose from RM15,819 (2004) to RM22,345 (2007). Looking at the Stats Dept website, the 2007 numbers look fine but still suspiciously unreal.
You don’t call the Economic Mythbuster for nothing, do you?
Per Capita Income (PCI) (sometimes called National Income or Personal Income) is derived by dividing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by the population. There are number reasons to believe Nor Yakcop’s claim as suspicious. More...
0 comments:
Post a Comment