YOURSAY | No parachute for Malaysian helicopter money

YOURSAY | 'Print more money and give it to the people? In two years, a loaf of bread will cost RM100!'

Ex-PNB CEO rubbishes deputy minister's 'print more money' idea

Public Transit Is Better Than Highways: Does the minister not know of what had unfolded in the Weimar Republic (1920s Germany), Venezuela and Zimbabwe when such nations printed more money in order to offset their debts, which resulted in the value of money being worthless?

The value of the Malaysian ringgit is already low compared to the Singaporean dollar. We do not need these kinds of "innovative ideas" from the minister to solve our economic issues.

Lest forbid that Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal becomes the finance minister, or worse - the governor of Bank Negara.

PW Cheng: If printing more money can be a solution to the economic woes of a country, then no country will be poor and everybody will be rich. We don’t even need to work.

But on hindsight, we are lucky to witness another excellent testimony of our failed education system.

If we follow Wan Fayhsal’s idea, Malaysia will fast become a banana republic and our currency will be similar to the Japanese ‘banana notes’ used during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. These banana notes had zero value and even a notaphilist would not be fond of it.

Ipohcrite: Former PNB chief executive officer Jalil Rasheed is absolutely right while Wan Fayhsal is totally wrong with his cockeyed idea of printing money.

If we do what the deputy minister suggested we do, this country will become a banana republic overnight.

Worried Sick: Print more money and give it to the people? In two years, a loaf of bread will cost RM100!

What type of politicians are we having? Stupidity has been raised to a whole new level.

YellowZebra3981: The three principles that describe how the economy, as a whole, works are:

1. A country’s standard of living depends on its ability to produce goods and services;

2. Prices rise when the government prints too much money; and

3. Society faces a short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment.

Iphonezours: This is the kind of brains we have as a deputy minister.

Doesn’t he know what happened in Zimbabwe where they decided to print more money, hoping to put more money into people’s hands?

That caused the country’s inflation to spiral and the value of its currency was worse than toilet paper. For heaven’s sake, let’s not have such clowns in our government or Malaysia will be a failed state.

Just A Malaysian: Here are the stages of a failed state:

Stage 1: Squander all natural resources in unproductive investment and corruption.

Stage 2: Borrow to sustain fake economic prosperity.

Stage 3: Borrow more to cover debts repayment and continue the fake prosperity.

Final stage: When further borrowing is not possible, print more money.

Our currency will collapse and we end up a basket case waiting for international aid to bail us out. Defending Malay rights will eventually end up sacrificing all Malaysians to a life of misery.

Vgeorgemy: Wan Fayhsal could not comprehend that the RM is only to be used in the Malaysian economy. No one can trade in the RM outside of Malaysia.

At the same time, almost all the trading nations depend on the US$ to conduct their economic activities. The so-called helicopter monies in the US are absorbed by other nations’ business activities to nullify the extra cash circulated that could have caused inflation in the US.

In such a scenario, the extra monies that were used to buy foreign products ended up with the exporting countries, which in turn used the US$ for their trading activities with other nations that accept US$ as their common trading currency.

The US can still print another four trillion worth of US$ without any inflationary issues as the world lost trillions due to Covid-19.

We already need to work four times harder every day to own one US$. That is not the case with the RM as it is not accepted by anyone who is trading with us.

Analyze This: I trust everyone knows that within the US Treasury, at least, the actual currency is not printed in the context of "printing money".

Rather, the Treasury performs a liquidity swap by adding a couple of zeros in its digital ledger and using that to buy the rather illiquid bonds that banks hold in exchange for dollar amounts.

The idea then is that banks will be more willing to lend money in a crisis.

The dollar amounts the US government recently sent to the public and various types of businesses came from increasing the budget deficit, not from liquidity swaps or "printing money".

The US does not print actual currency for the purpose of quantitative easing or financial handouts to the country at large, other than what is normally required for the daily flow of funds in societies and trade.

Apparently, our deputy minister is talking about printing actual currency for public distribution.

The US public was given "free money" recently, but not with currency, because nearly everyone has a bank account, and those who don't, get paid in other ways, such as a preloaded debit card.

BrownFalcon4984: Budget 2021 has failed to assist businesses and it is solely centred on the next general election with payouts for voters and Jasa (Special Affairs Department).

Most projects won't take off, for there will be no revenue as government revenue was grossly overestimated. Private businesses will not invest due to uncertainty, and government-linked companies (GLCs) are more interested in receiving good salaries.

There were no reforms to improve the competitive edge of the country, which could see more investment. And the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will result in our neighbouring countries taking our businesses away.

The Endgames: It's okay for the government to print money. Because even when RM5 = SG$1, they, the politicians, can still "masuk" enough to overcome it.

It’s a good proposal by them, and for them. For common folks, if you can, please put your money outside the country before it is too late.

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