Shedding into Japanese snakeskin to deny bankruptcy

The big buzz on Tun Dr Mahathir's trip to Japan on the social media is him admitting that it is not easy to arrest, charge and imprison Dato Najib.

It is not be done in haste as failure to do so will result in people questionimg all the remarks and accusations made against him.

This is no more swings and roundabout but practically an about turn. Its also the snake shedding a new skin acceptable to the intellect of the un-uneducated Japanese and global audience.

Mahathir also said Malaysia will not slide into bankruptcy as there are “huge savings” from several government institutions, which can be used to help the economy recover in the event of crisis.

“I don’t think ... the country will slide into bankruptcy,” he said in a news conference broadcast live from Tokyo, Japan where he is attending the Future of Asia conference hosted by Nikkei.

The Malay Mail reported:

Dr M: No fear of sliding into bankruptcy after 1997 financial crisis

Publish date: Mon, 11 Jun 2018, 03:22 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, June 11 — Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad sought today to allay fears that the country may become bankrupt under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government.

He asserted that the country has learnt its lessons from the 1997 financial crisis, adding that there are “huge savings” from several government institutions, notably the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), which can be used to help the economy recover in the event of crisis.

“I don’t think under this government, the country will slide into bankruptcy,” he said in a news conference broadcast live from Tokyo, Japan where he is attending the Future of Asia conference hosted by Nikkei.

Dr Mahathir was replying a question on whether Malaysia might slip into a financial crisis over the RM1 trillion debt and liabilities.

“Had the previous government won, there would be a slide towards bankruptcy, but Malaysia is fortunate in that it has huge savings.

“We have the Employees Provident Fund for example, which has a lot of money and many other institutions which have saved quite a lot, so that can be backing for our attempt to recover the economy,” Dr Mahathir said.

In a reminder, he said his previous administration — then under the Barisan Nasional — had weathered the 1997 crisis that enveloped many other Asian nations, and that the current PH administration will be able to cope with similar challenges that may crop up in future.

“As you know in 1997, we had a very terrible financial crisis, and we got out of that.

“We feel that we know something about the finance of a country, which would enable us to claw back and retain and regain our financial strength as it was before,” Dr Mahathir added.

Last month, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng revealed that Malaysia is saddled with over RM1 trillion in debt.

The announcement rocked the local stock exchange, which then saw 14 days of continued capital outflows.

However, Dr Mahathir in an interview later, claimed that he has found ways to wipe out almost RM200 billion of the country’s RM1 trillion of debt and liabilities, and that he is working with PH to mitigate the debt.

He has previously said that Malaysia’s total debt and liabilities have crossed RM1 trillion when combined with off-balance sheet items such as contingent liabilities and lease payments for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects, or 80.3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

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Ignoring his cheap political propaganda and picking on the previous government, the report indirectly admitted the official govt debt is RM681 billion, which is RM380 billion more than the RM300 billion debt in 2008 before the Najib govt came into power.

But what Tun M forgot to tell you is that the wealth or assets of Khazanah, BNM and Petronas alone has increased by RM400 billion between 2008 to end 2017 - more than the govt debt increase.

Between 2008 to 2017:

• BNM's net reserves (not counting FOREX) increased from RM31.7b to RM136.8b.
• Petronas net assets doubled from RM223.4b to RM432.4b. More significantly, Petronas now has CASH of RM164.7b which is many times more compared to before.
• Khazanah Net Worth increased from RM31.7b to RM136.8b.

BNM, Khazanah and Petronas are all 100% owned by the govt so the govt can take their money ANYTIME to pay off national debt if they want. This is just 3 asset - not even counting the other assets and funds owned by the govt.

To make things even more interesting, the wealth of the people increased even more.

Between 2008 to 2017, PNB's funds more than doubled from RM120b to RM280b while EPF's funds grew from RM340b to RM815b.

Meaning the wealth of the people in these two funds alone grew almost RM700b - from RM400b to RM1,095b

Essentially, Tun M just admitted today that Malaysia was never in any danger of going bankrupt.

It was just lies before GE14, which will also serve as a good excuse not to implement their unrealistic Manifesto promises after GE14.

However, let's just hope that this new Tun M govt will not raid EPF for bail-outs again just like how he did so with the MAMINCO tin scandal and the BNM Forex scandal.