Malaysia heading to Economic Crisis

Malaysia is rapidly moving towards the greatest economic crisis this country has ever seen. The government is literally running out of money, maybe to the extent that they won't even be able to pay for public sector salaries. Jobs are scarce. Bankruptcies are increasing. Loan defaults are increasing.

Rents are getting higher. Food prices are getting higher. Plus, there's global inflation, energy, food shortages, on and on and on. And now I'm seeing that the government may be hiring McKinsey and Company to manage their new post COVID economic recovery plan. This is very troubling news if it's true.

McKinsey and Company is a neoliberal consultancy firm whose primary function is to serve the interests of their institutional donors and western corporate clients. You don't want them managing your economic recovery. You don't want them managing your budget and what the government can spend money on. You don't want to outsource the management of your economy to a western consultancy. This will be catastrophic for Malaysia, and that stands for any country in this region or in the global South generally.

McKinsey does not care about your economy. They care about making money for themselves and their corporate clients and their financiers. How do you think the EU got into the mess that they're in economically? They outsourced a significant portion of their economic management to consultancy firms just like McKinsey. So I guarantee you, if the Malaysian government is low on cash, McKinsey will recommend taking out loans from the IMF, which will essentially surrender your economic sovereignty to the IMF for decades to come.

Now I'm not partisan. I don't support or favor or oppose any of the political parties in Malaysia. I don't care who prevails in the upcoming general election, but all I can say is that I pray that whoever wins, they recognize that we are undergoing a massive transformation in the global order. The dynamics of power are shifting. The way the global economy operates is changing.

And the political and economic independence of Malaysia and every other country in this region and every other country in the global South is going to require governments to adapt to these seismic changes. Food security, energy self sufficiency, regionalization of supply chains, political nonalignment, reinvigoration of agricultural production, and the onshoring of manufacturing, and the decoupling as much as possible from collapsing western economies. All of these are vital policy measures that need to be developed and quickly. What Malaysia needs more than anything else right now, in my opinion, is a number cruncher. Someone who can make a comprehensive study of all available resources and figure out how to make them stretch as far as possible and how to develop new resources.

Someone who can do the tedious boring work of budget analysis and who can meticulously balance expenses against revenues for the purpose of enhancing Malaysia's self sufficiency. Not necessarily someone who's exciting, not necessarily someone who's charismatic, not necessarily someone who's great at rhetoric or politicking, but simply someone who is a good organizer of resources and a good manager, but also someone who understands that the status quo as we have always known it is very fast becoming obsolete and who understands that the future is gonna look very different from anything that Malaysia has seen since first gaining independence. The decisions made over the next twelve months will have repercussions for the next thirty years. If they are the right decisions, Malaysia will be able to take advantage of the major geopolitical and economic changes in the global order. If they are the wrong decisions, Malaysia will be taken advantage of and forfeit the prosperous future that this country so deserves.