Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Learn from Dr. M
Excellent BBC interview with Mahathir Mohamed, former PM of Malaysia. He's trying to tell Euro and US how to recover from our economic death spiral. He speaks from a more or less Islamic worldview, but basically he's just telling us to return to the pre-1980 way of doing things.
Partial transcription, with some editing of unclear phrases:
Host: Why do you think Asia has managed to weather the financial storm so much better than its Western rivals?
MM: In Asia we are still doing real business. In the West you are not doing real business, in the sense of providing goods and services. You are dealing mostly in the financial market which is not doing anything productive. It is just a kind of gambling.
Host: So can the West learn anything from how Asia built up its economy?
MM: Asia was a poor part of the world in the past and we used to live as poor people. Slowly we are building up our wealth and now we are much better off. In Europe now, as a result of these bursting bubbles, you have lost a lot of wealth, and now you must be poorer relative to the past. In Asia we live within our means. When we are poor we live as poor people. I think that is a lesson you can learn from Asia.
Host: So what should Europe do?
MM: You should go back to doing real business. Producing goods, providing services, trading, not just moving figures in bankbooks.
Host: Well, people who work in the financial sector would argue that they are providing a valuable service to business.
MM: I don't think so. They are just abusing the system in order to make money for themselves. They do not generate jobs or businesses. For instance, currency trading moves 4 trillion dollars a day. This is about the same as Germany's GDP for a year. Currency trading does not generate any jobs, so it is not productive.
Host: Currency trading has been a big issue for you. You famously pegged the Malaysian currency to stop the speculators.
MM: Currency is not a commodity. When you deal in coffee, coffee is something you can drink. You can grind it up and turn it into a useful drink. Currency, you cannot grind it and make it into anything. It is just figures in the books, and you can't trade with figures. There must be something solid [bangs his fist on the table for solidity!] to trade. Then you can legitimately make money.
Host: Should we stop having floating exchange rates?
MM: Well, floating is fine but it is not just floating by itself. Some people are manipulating it, by shortselling for example. If you keep on selling a currency that will depress the price, and if you keep on buying that will raise the price. So you can take a profit at any time just by moving up or down.
Host: So how do we stop this speculation?
MM: The idea that the market can regulate itself is quite wrong, because the market is about making profits for themselves. They don't care what happens to other people. They impoverish whole countries [as Soros did to Malaysia] and lots of people suffer.
Host: You think there should be regulation?
MM: Yes. I believe currency trading has no function at all. Of course you have to exchange currency to have trade, but pure speculation should be stopped.
Host: Coming back to Europe's predicament. How difficult a situation is Europe in now?
MM: In the first place you are in a state of denial. You refuse to acknowledge that you have lost money and therefore you are poor. You can't remedy that by printing money. Money isn't something that you just print. Money must be backed up by something, and gold is probably the best backup.
Host: How long will it take for Europe to get out of this?
MM: It will take a long time. To recover your wealth, first you have to work for many years to rebuild your capacity to produce goods and services to sell to the world. You cannot expect to live at this level of wealth when you are not producing anything.
= = = = =
Yup. Nuff said.
Partial transcription, with some editing of unclear phrases:
Host: Why do you think Asia has managed to weather the financial storm so much better than its Western rivals?
MM: In Asia we are still doing real business. In the West you are not doing real business, in the sense of providing goods and services. You are dealing mostly in the financial market which is not doing anything productive. It is just a kind of gambling.
Host: So can the West learn anything from how Asia built up its economy?
MM: Asia was a poor part of the world in the past and we used to live as poor people. Slowly we are building up our wealth and now we are much better off. In Europe now, as a result of these bursting bubbles, you have lost a lot of wealth, and now you must be poorer relative to the past. In Asia we live within our means. When we are poor we live as poor people. I think that is a lesson you can learn from Asia.
Host: So what should Europe do?
MM: You should go back to doing real business. Producing goods, providing services, trading, not just moving figures in bankbooks.
Host: Well, people who work in the financial sector would argue that they are providing a valuable service to business.
MM: I don't think so. They are just abusing the system in order to make money for themselves. They do not generate jobs or businesses. For instance, currency trading moves 4 trillion dollars a day. This is about the same as Germany's GDP for a year. Currency trading does not generate any jobs, so it is not productive.
Host: Currency trading has been a big issue for you. You famously pegged the Malaysian currency to stop the speculators.
MM: Currency is not a commodity. When you deal in coffee, coffee is something you can drink. You can grind it up and turn it into a useful drink. Currency, you cannot grind it and make it into anything. It is just figures in the books, and you can't trade with figures. There must be something solid [bangs his fist on the table for solidity!] to trade. Then you can legitimately make money.
Host: Should we stop having floating exchange rates?
MM: Well, floating is fine but it is not just floating by itself. Some people are manipulating it, by shortselling for example. If you keep on selling a currency that will depress the price, and if you keep on buying that will raise the price. So you can take a profit at any time just by moving up or down.
Host: So how do we stop this speculation?
MM: The idea that the market can regulate itself is quite wrong, because the market is about making profits for themselves. They don't care what happens to other people. They impoverish whole countries [as Soros did to Malaysia] and lots of people suffer.
Host: You think there should be regulation?
MM: Yes. I believe currency trading has no function at all. Of course you have to exchange currency to have trade, but pure speculation should be stopped.
Host: Coming back to Europe's predicament. How difficult a situation is Europe in now?
MM: In the first place you are in a state of denial. You refuse to acknowledge that you have lost money and therefore you are poor. You can't remedy that by printing money. Money isn't something that you just print. Money must be backed up by something, and gold is probably the best backup.
Host: How long will it take for Europe to get out of this?
MM: It will take a long time. To recover your wealth, first you have to work for many years to rebuild your capacity to produce goods and services to sell to the world. You cannot expect to live at this level of wealth when you are not producing anything.
= = = = =
Yup. Nuff said.
Labels: Natural law = Sharia law
¶ 5:38 AM
