Instead of refuting Anwar’s counter-argument, he instead chose to bring up past history and bring up the same argument again. So how could he have “trashed” Anwar?

Anwar said that his plan did not involve taking a huge chunk out of Petronas’ profits, rather about reducing the government wastage (complete with examples of previous cases), and reducing the buffer capacity from 40% ro 20%.

That may or may not work but Shabery did not address this at all. Instead he brought up rubbish from the past and created an ad hominem argument and comparing our country with others.

Anwar may or may not be right about his points but Shab failed to properly disprove his argument. Hence, he could not have won the debate, let alone “trash” his opponent.

Mind you, this argument is about whether who convincingly won the debate rather than whether Anwar was right or wrong.

The expectation of the debate is very simple. DSAI supposed to provide a formula on how the oil can be still subsidised without affecting the economy / Petronas / long term growth. But DSAI failed miserably.

Firstly he got his calculations all wrong by quoting Rm5 Billion when it should be far more (may be Rm 15 Billion) based on the current oil prices. Secondly the 50 sen he quoted was wrong as this was before the GE and not after the recent price hike. This effectively means that DSAI will increase the price of oil instead of reducing it.

As for SC, he has to defend why the govt has no choice but to increase the price. I think he did a fantastic job in explaining the economic justification.

In my opinion, SC just thrashed DSAI.

However, many people will not accept this as no logical reasons in the world can convince them that the oil subsidy should be reduced.

BTW, please drop this idiotic comparison with Singapore. They are a rich country and we are a Third World one. Obviously they will be better off than us, not just in the price of oil but also in everything else due to their superior GDP/capita.

If we are to use this argument, we also can go back and argue about those countries who are poorer than Malaysia. Though some have cheaper petrol, but because they are poorer so they are even more affected right ?

And the argument about oil exporter is also faulty. If we are not a nett oil exporter, then we would be paying the market price for oil. Don’t compare with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela since our oil revenue (nett) is peanuts compared to them.

Taken from Killer post -sorry did not ask first.

Does who talk and those who do. You decide.

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chunyeen
mediarakyat site admin.

Link:
http://sagaladoola.blogspot.com/2008/07/malaysian-politicians-historic-first.html

Personally for the debates my comments is similar from the rocky bru’s comment, is that Shabery played the blame game but not that excessively. DSAI Anwar previously was Minister of Finance, so he has no problem in giving such debates. He was indeed a part of the policy-making BN machine.

The Info Minister had reminded Anwar that in 1997 he was subscribing to IMF prescriptions, such as pushing up interest rates sky high, which hurt a lot of business people and the layman.

However both speakers conducted themselves very well. They were not emotional and stuck to the topic.

Hopefully this debate program could be done frequently in the future for food of thoughts for the public and the government towards developing our country.

As PM & DPM, I just want to say shame on the both of you. Instead of stepping up as a true leader would do, you opted to hide in the background. Your sacrificial lamb in Shabery Cheek, though he failed miserably should be credited for having the balls (which the both of you clearly dont have) to face Anwar.

So, who is next from UMNO-BN?? Hishamuddin?? Samy Vellu??

The quality of economic discussion could be improved as facts and figures were presented without further analysis. Venezuela is facing major economic problems of hyperinflation because of its currency peg, price controls and years of unbridled monetary expansion thanks to high oil revenues and fiscal spending.

Next debate: Tony Phua/Khalid Ibrahim versus Tan Sri Mohd Noor/KJ on “Malaysia’s Inflation Time Bomb & Currency Policy”.)