NST/Gov’t takes low blow at Tony Pua
I take it as a sign of weakness. When Tony spearheaded a full alternative budget, he probably accomplished something pretty unprecedented. You can imagine BN getting very nervous about this sort of thing.
I have never bought the argument that the Opposition is not ‘qualified’ to form an alternative government, and this is just further proof.
In fact, the government ignored the document completely, refusing to debate its obvious merits. All they can do is to resort to undignified attacks which have nothing to do with Tony’s abilities as an economic advisor.
The fact that someone who obviously did due diligence before spending millions decided to buy his company at all is proof enough for me.
And if some unnamed reporter wants to take a swipe at Tony for not being able to manage money, I’d like to ask who is writing filthy spin for the government, and who is comfortably retired and working his ass off for the good of the country.
The NST also loves to demonise bloggers, but seems to have no qualms quoting one (anonymously) when it suits their purposes. When I was later told that said blogger was a former employee of Tony’s, I couldn’t help but find the conduct disappointingly unprofessional.
26/12: ps- thank you to all who offered kind words and support, I appreciate it as always :) I doubt there’s a need to take too seriously things that need not be taken seriously, I think it will be good to focus on vindicating Tony :)
i was never tony’s employee. STOP SPREADING LIES. PLEASE CHECK YOUR F**KING FACTS. Tony PUa’s company has been unprofitable most of its life.
also you are not qualified to comment on financial statements. u have a degree in peace n conflict management, or what not? stop pretending to be an accountant or a finance specialist.
Our newspapers are nothing but a pack of falsehood mongers. I stopped wasting my money buying it since last month.
oh jed, then who’s payroll were you on while freelunching at the rocket? if not tony’s … takkan DAP’s?
also, you are not qualified to comment on people. you are obviously a rat.
The NST and other mainstream media (MSM) are just a pack of lies, lies and more lies. Join Peoples’ Parliament and boycott all MSM now. Show them that the rakyat means business and that they can take their fuc*ing dailes and shove it down their asses. Enough is enough!!!!
I am no economics or financial guru, but elementary common sense will tell me that you wont be able to list a company in the Singapore Exchange if the company has been unprofitable most of its life. Or else I also got a paid up RM2.00 company and would love to see it listed in the Singapore Exchange.
[...] people have called me a “rat”, so here’s a “rat” wishing you all a Blessed [...]
How amusing - the whole point of freedom of speech is that everyone has the right to comment on everything. Saying so-and-so has no right to comment on something because of such-and-such is completely antithetical to freedom of speech, and is tantamount to an ad hominem attack, ignoring the substance of the argument and focusing on the identity of the arguer.
For the purposes of the alternative budget, it should not matter whether Tony’s economic credentials are sound - the point is, the largest opposition party in Parliament released an alternative budget, and the government has refused to even comment on it. And for the purposes of Tony’s economic prowess, practically anyone can tell you that economics has very little to do with business. (Among other things, economic theory suggests that trading in the stock markets is pointless - a principle directly opposed to that of most businessmen and financiers.)
Anyway, Tony isn’t an economist. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t or can’t have good ideas about economics. Hafiz has a good post about this:
http://maddruid.com/?p=1486
wah lau eh! don’t be like that, calm down, calm down,
anyway, what’s the end result when u associate urself with dinasti aku punya party? ;(
he, he ,he!!!!
Hi Nat, this is directed to Jed (and NST),
Having been trained in Cambridge, and currently going through the sad post-graduate life in Cambridge still as an economics student, I find it odd to be standing on the side of Tony Pua (an Oxonian..) on this matter.
Your ‘critical comment’ on Tony is ad hominem in nature, akin to saying that a fat Chef can never cook healthy food, or a deaf Musician can never play good music (ehem, Eve Glennie).
To judge Tony’s credibility as an Economic Adviser, I find it best to go through his work as one, ie, read through his Budget (Nat provided a link) and compare it with the most obvious alternative, the real Budget. Tell me if you could find it severely misguided, and terribly lacking in economics insight relative to the actual Budget.
Tell me if you could … because I can’t.
And yes, Merry Christmas.
Elanor
ahh… jed yoong
isnt she the one who used to blog as freelunch2020 and, to quote her,
“i am the editor of rocket. that was what i was employed to do under tony pua.
teresa kok is publicity officer.
i hope you will apologise for implying that i was lying.
i am THE EDITOR for ROCKET under TONY PUA who is executive editor — who decides what goes in the ROCKET.”
and made a big fuss about how she was quitting blogging cos she was the editor of dap rocket when in actual fact, she was never the editor of the rocket but part of the editorial team as in reporter
no one asked her to stop blogging
AND
the best part of it, unknown to most, she had already resigned for whatever she was doing at dap.
ahh….. THAT freelunch….
JED YOONG wrote on Dec 24, 2007 at 1:57 pm
also you are not qualified to comment on financial statements. u have a degree in peace n conflict management, or what not? stop pretending to be an accountant or a finance specialist.
COMMENT:
So all social political bloggers should not comment on politics or society because you do not have a DEGREE in political science ? ( No qualification it seems )
So people on the ground should not comment about finance and economy because they do not have a DEGREE in Finance and Economy ?
Sigh… Goodness gracious.. ” what talk you ” ?!?
Besides, Nat is not commenting on financial statements. It is true that people are spending millions to buy up Tony’s company. People only buy up companies that is worth the price. That is what is being said and it is true.
Jed, I think you should be polite and think before you blurt out that comment. I respect your opinion but having high qualifications and being a journalist for several papers do not make you qualified for speaking in a “High and Mighty” way.
I am sorry but that is rude.
Regards,
http://sagaladoola.blogspot.com
now…i need to look at the accounts myself…
Hmmm: http://elanortan.blogspot.com/2007/12/ouch-ad-hominem-ad-infinitum.html
Jed mentioned
“also you are not qualified to comment on financial statements. u have a degree in peace n conflict management, or what not? stop pretending to be an accountant or a finance specialist”
Joke of the day….. most of the ministers have to resign from their post because most of them do not even have a degree in any fields.
I concur… Malaysians are still horrible at communication. No surprise that if the grassroots are like this, the nation must deserves to be run by morons.
Tony has sacrificed so much to join the opposition politics to fight against the evil UMNO for the country’s better future, what has Jed Yoong done? Shame on her!
If I were the boss of Jed Yoong, I would also sack her for her sheer arrogance. People like her does not seem to be able respect and to get along with everyone.
Jed Yoong, I hope you can apologize to Tony, but I doubt people like you (like most UMNO morons) can have the guts and sincerity to say ’sorry’. Please think carefully what you have done, you are so childish in fact!
Btw… economics says that you shouldn’t try to make money on the stock market (or any market for that matter) ONLY IF there is perfect information…. but in the absence of perfect information… such as we have right here, some stand to gain something by grabbing their piece of the pie… like this USA joker above ;)
I found the article about Tony Pua to be most comical when I read it and just dismissed it as MSM spin.
If the company has been always unprofitable as claimed to be, how could it be public listed? Obviously someone thought it had lot of potential if they paid huge bucks to acquire it.
Anyone can say anything. It all boils down to whether we use our brains to think and analyse when we read something.
You guys remember what the American Indian said about the American White Man……”he (she!) talked with FORKED tongue”……creepy crawlies that slithers on their bellies….sometimes referred to as vipers.Peace to people of Goodwill and Piss to people of evil intent.
thank you to all who offered kind words and support, I appreciate it as always :) I doubt there’s a need to take too seriously things that need not be taken seriously, I think it will be good to focus on vindicating Tony :)
Dear all,
1) back in those days, it is true you can list on SESDAQ as a startup with no track record and YES, EVEN WHEN LOSING MONEY :-)
Spore was trying to jump on the dotcom bandwagon but no more when they came to their senses.
2) imho, Tony is a good technopreneur and it is a significant step for DAP to come up with an alternative budget - now he needs to publicise and take it to ALL Malaysians!
However, the way some of your disagreements and shallow arguments against Jed shows me that the style is similar to UMNO :-(
Hamzah,
Could you please point out which of the arguments above were shallow?
What Jade Yoong (yes that’s her name, not Jed) did was pull a fast one aka a logical fallacy to shut Nat Tan up (as pointed by Elanor and others); without realising that by virtue of the fact that she was an Accounting student in Warwick Uni, she should also stop commenting about everything except debit, credit and the bottomline.
That’s pretty deep man. These people evidently have studied the Rhetoric when they were kiddied.
LOL!
I’m flattered. I’ve been quoted by both sides to support both points.
I read Jed’s original post just a while ago on the Tony Pua issue and I think that while she may come across as arrogant in some of her comments, I think the main issue that she was trying to highlight in her original post is whether Tony’s the right man to be the economic advisor of DAP based on his educational background. I think this is a valid question and I think that no one would have any problems (or be indignant) if the same question was asked if a butcher was the right man to advise on surgery (to put in a more extreme example).
Some of the parts about his business acumen and, perhaps, on his character for not sticking it out with the company were a little unfortunate to me and probably irrelevant unless she can show that he bailed on the company when he knew that it would be unprofitable.
Without the proper qualifications, I think the onus is on Tony to convince people that he has enough command of economics to be a good economic advisor. Until then, I think we can expect the government to try to constantly highlight things like this (while ignoring the lack of qualifications of their own ministers). Unfortunately, I’m probably not the right person to judge Tony’s work based on my own lack of knowledge on mainstream economic theories and I must admit, I haven’t read it yet (although I have downloaded it and promise to make it my reading assignment for this weekend! ;) )
I agree with Hamzah @ 2:56pm and Elanor’s earlier comment @ Dec 25, 2007, 11:37 am. We cannot allow stereotypes to pattern our thinking and reasoning or else we will be just as guilty of the very things we scorn.
The way I see it, blogs like Jed’s and Nat’s allow for people to critically participate in discussions and exchange ideas in a way that is also breaking the old models of how Malaysians used to talk about and participate in social politics in the past. Online, nobody knows what race, religion or gender you are (at least at first glance) and we are (usually) automatically forced to draw conclusions about them from the perceived merits of their thoughts and ideas. But once that is done, we have to be careful about forever lumping them into the same category for all eternity. After all, good ideas and critical debates are not the sole rights of people belonging to a certain category. Just because someone may have said/done something you don’t agree with doesn’t mean you don’t share common views on other matters or that they are not capable of having better ideas than you.
The bottom line is as people who pride ourselves as independent minded, we owe it to ourselves to not take the easier road of ad hominem thinking and to always think things through no matter how well we think we know the topic. Critically, we always need to civilly debate/share our stand with all, even those that may not share our view. The message is important, but the channel and method of delivery is also important.
For the record, I have read Jed’s blog a couple of times before she made her comments on Tony Pua and I think she always tries to make valid points and to engage with commentators in a constructive way.
[*phew* I really need to work on getting to the point with less words :( I'll try harder next time! ;P ]
nat: please, take as many words as you like :)
a big pat-on-the-back to tony for the alternative budget, but to clarify, I don’t think it was an unprecedented achievement: IIRC Jomo produced an alternative budget in the reformasi-hysteria days (somewhere around ‘99, give or take a year), and I’d be surprised if the opposition didn’t produce alternative budgets before that in Malaysia’s 50 year history; at least pre-1969 I imagine there would have been something.
john: as for gomen’s refusal to comment on the DAP’s alt-budget, ur absolutely right, but I think such policy statements are useful nevertheless because - although they will *NEVER* *EVER* give credit to the opposition for their ideas - the ideas are sometimes adopted, e.g. IINM Jomo was the first to publicly propose capital controls post ‘97 meltdown, and subsequently something along those lines were adopted by the Mahathir administration. Another example; there were some roadworks proposals mooted by DAP Federal Territory (and/or PJ, I can’t remember), later to be adopted by DBKL. Finally, LKS was IINM the first to call on Malaysia to use her temporary seat in the UN security council to push for the lifting of sanctions in Iraq circa ‘98, which the gomen did subsequently attempt.
… so we keep on truckin’ la, just don’t expect props ;)
jerng // Dec 26, 2007 at 11:36 am …
I concur… Malaysians are still horrible at communication. No surprise that if the grassroots are like this, the nation must deserves to be run by morons.
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This jerng here maybe he can tell us what he meant by that sudden outburst. I think he has some communication problem of expressing how he really stands on the issue at hand.
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I agree with Annoyed // Dec 26, 2007 at 3:46 pm ’s comments and questions on Hamzah.
I chanced upon this article when I was googling for ‘missing’ Jed Yoong. I am very disappointed with the malice of this article from a good guy like you. The article JY prepared on Tony previous company record has almost impeccable data, figures and financial results. Yet, most pounded on her as a ‘rat’. Didn’t most also similarly pounded on the Government when their GLCs and so-called cronies’ financial results were similarly dismaying? Why the double standard here? But more importantly, why are you behaving like gangsters…convincing your argument with clubs and not soda? Some companies are purchased not with ‘due diligence’ but for purpose beyond book-keeping and novice knowledge. As for me…I despise so-called corporate figures that do not look out for minorities’ interest. Retiring with a golden parachute and leaving an unprofitable company is not something we should encourage as a good equity investment. Arrogance and pride can be the end of anyone.