GLC (Government Losing Concern). Dismantle Them

I have to I have to tell you about the what GLC can also stand for. Okay. Let's wrap it up at that point and then we close it. A GLC, if you lose money, then it becomes a government losing concern. A government losing concern. That is what GLC is. Because you if you lose money, any concern that loses money is going to losing concern. But if you're a government company that loses money, you become a government losing concern like GLC. But there's another angle to it. If you do it often enough, the government will lose the elections, you get kicked out. You really become a government

losing concern. I think at this stage, we need to really save this country. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Gut Shot Podcast. I'm Shamsul, Sam. I'm back with my partner and Sleeba. Sayid Akbar Ali. Good morning. Today, we are going to dive in into this great Malaysian economic black hole called the GLCs and the GLIC ecosystem. All right. I know we've gone through this before, but we're going to dive in a bit more on the numbers and how it has impacted basically our economy and stagnant wages. Um and I think with that also, we'll dive in a bit Because because more bungles have come

up. I know. I know. I know. I know. Yeah, we we caught up on this because I mean, just the whole of last week, things just keep coming out. Right? Okay. Sayid, why don't we start with where we are at? I mean, in terms of uh what our people are going through. Their median, their wages. This is Let's let's start there. Sayid. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you mentioned, you know, the wages is depressing, uh. Our median monthly wage now in Malaysia, some people are saying it's set to about 2,900 ringgit, uh. And then, uh about 2/3 of the entire workforce, they earn semi-skilled

or low-skilled wages, that's, uh even less, uh, 2,200 or something like that, uh. But, I think a lot of them are operating just at minimum minimum wage, uh. 1,700 ringgit. So, uh the the politicians keep bragging, uh. On on all the, uh, broadcast, so it's 6% growth. is delusional and is illusion, uh. I don't know where, um I don't know where which where they're actually looking at because but when you say median wages, median means the 50% point, you know. Yeah. Of your semi-skilled workers, all of them they are at 2,940 ringgit. That's say what you want, uh. And that's a lot of people Yeah.

who are basically quite subsis- subsistence kind of living Living. living, especially in urban area, uh. I think if you live far away in the rural areas, it shouldn't be a problem, uh. But, the problem is probably when you are living in a rural area, you're not even making that much. even making that much, uh. So, it's it's difficult. So, all this, you know just rose what rose beds and roses or whatever they talk about. we are putting roses, uh, putting thorn in the on the bed with the roses. Uh, you know, for example, they said that the median wages went up Yeah. slightly, uh. Mhm. Uh,

over 25 or whatever, but there was a time when the minimum wages also went up, isn't it? Yes. 1,500 to 1,700, Yeah, so of course, the wages in the rural areas went up by decree. Yes, a decree lah. Right. I don't know who decrees it, minimum wages. I don't know. I don't know which uh I don't know. Lord of the Jungle, but Lord of the Rings. They decreed it that the minimum wage should go up to 1,700. Of Of course the wages went up in the in the rural areas lah. And the The guy who decreed it doesn't have to pay it out. The In the urban areas, it didn't go up so much because in like urban areas,

especially Klang Valley, most people are earning above Above 1,700. above minimum wage lah. So they increase it from 1,500 to 1,700, yeah, it doesn't affect that many people in urban areas who are already earning above 1,700. But the In the rural areas, yes. Yeah. You know, sudden early Christmas lah. Yeah. But the question is, does it really reflect their output, their productivity to warrant that kind of increase because uh if the increment in the minimum wage in the rural areas is not tied to their productivity, Mhm. it simply means unemployment. Right. Because employers who don't have that

kind of productivity Mhm. to justify a higher wage, but they are forced to pay because that's the minimum wage uh So their returns will have to go down. Yeah. Somebody has to have to lose something Yes. The boss has to take home less lah. Yeah. Or he'll have less money to expand the business, you know, to do things, to open a new branch, whatever. So at the end of the day, they'll have to cut their labor Uh their workers uh So you will find that uh minimum wage is always causes unemployment. It always does. Yeah. Especially when the wage incremental is not tied to the productivity. Yep.

So more people will be out of work lah. Let Let me Let me Let me then tie it back uh to uh why we are talking about the all these scandals that has come out lah. Uh I want to read my some of the research number. Okay, about money aggregate wise. Uh The government This is coming from a combination of statistics. The Ministry of Finance parliamentary reply from the for the Auditor General report. Okay, that's and then independent academic studies and also from Edge and email and what not. Now, we benchmark at there's a Institute. Okay, former ADB lead economist Dr. Jayant Menon. He puts

federal direct direct federal government bailout and fiscal support to GLC cost between 85 to 51 billion over a 36 period from 81 282 2017. And then the Edge and post 2018 accumulation now uh it it it it comes from additional bailout. Legacy bailout infrastructure which Menon put at 85.51. 1 MDB is 32 30 to 40 billion between 2018 to 2025. Lembaga Tabung 2018 2026 10 billion. Felda FGV financial restructuring 2019 to 2023 6.23 billion. Are you guys tired yet? Sapura Energy buys and rescues 4 to 5 billion between 2021 to 2025. So, total cumulative burden from 81 to

2026 is is approximately 140 billion over. Ringgit in ringgit terms. Okay, now that is the number only the ones that I have mentioned. They are more. Okay? So, the you will talk about capital misallocation. All right? Imagine this 140 million 40 billion plus the corruption figure annually that the uh our chief of police had reported had been reported to say about 50 billion on annual basis. Chief commissioner of corruption and police. Police. Police. Police, okay? Um 50 billion. About 50 billion a year. And I've always maintained, actually, this is Shell training, uh okay? If you see a problem

and you can identify the problem, the problem that you have identified is only 10%. You've got 90% of the iceberg of the problem you don't see. Okay? So, if that were true, just think about that. You're talking about maybe 500 billion annually to 200 maybe if I give it 50% only la, 250 billion. Okay? This is being you know, our statistical how we were trained in Shell. But, be it as it may, you got about another 50 billion annually that the chief of police has already has said in the in the to the press, okay? So, guys, so we talk about misallocation of resources. This money could have gone

somewhere into the economy. This money that is bailed out is coming from taxpayer, uh. Taxpayer's money. Yeah. This money could have gone into hospitals. We can build more hospitals, doctors. We can create more jobs, uh training doctors. Infrastructure. Infrastructure, schools, facility. Reduce the government's borrowing. Exactly. Government deficit. Right. And we are paying interest on that government borrowing, right? So, this is straight down the tube, guys. All right? And then not to mention, say how much do you think in the GLCs these days? You mean for the CEOs and the chairman?

For the CEO, the chairman, the board of directors, which are all political appointees. More mainly I think not less than six figure salaries. Yeah. Not less. Maybe even seven figures. There you go. So, these are hard data, guys. All right? So, let's let's let's just talk about the the, you know, we got fashion retailer. That was not counted. Khazanah and PNB injected about 47 million public funds into the e-commerce so-called platform. I don't know how they managed to actually get these people to inject 47 million. Dude, give me 10 million, I'll I'll build it into a billion company. Are you

You know, in 2018, only to dump it They dumped it at how much, you know, say? 3.1 million. So, they lost almost all of it. Yeah. 47 to 3, they lost 44. Yeah. 44 million. Just written off. Our money. Yeah, our money. You know? So, it it it it gets even better for our pensioners. LTAT and their subsidiaries, they lost nearly 5 billion. Half of its total fund value. All right? One plantation stake 1.15 billion. I mean, all this we keep getting and getting every morning we wake up every other morning we wake up we get another scandal, you know. What what did you say just now about the UITM holix?

But no today this I received something going around is a video about another university campus somewhere in Tapah. Uh-huh. Uh It was around about 300 million ringgit or something then it is balloon to what sorry over billion. Oh my god. this is this is one of those things going around but these these things are happening. Every other day we get these new exposures coming up. You see the thing is uh Uh this is really money down the tubes. Our money taxpayers money, yeah. Uh I wish these people at some point at some somebody would tell them to go and spend their own money.

Do it papa their senior. Yeah. They are really burning our money. It's a lot of money. But they are okay money we can we can It's not a very It's not a proper thing to say but we can earn it back cuz the following year we pay taxes again. Yeah. But it's still our money. But the thing is you see uh First of all the GLCs the whole concept is wrong totally wrong. Uh the the the GLCs should really be unwound. We should stop having these GLCs anymore. I mean they already see uh we cannot close them down overnight but we have to phase them out. Yes. And there are many ways of doing it. Yes.

They are they are workable and logical and and the right way the correct way of doing things to is to work them out of the system. Cut them loose they have to compete they have to get their own financing things like that. Yeah. The government can still hold shares, you know, it doesn't matter. Not every country the GLCs are doing bad. In Singapore is a country where GLCs have done well although they have lost money too. money too but those those who lost money who ventured in the new new areas bio biotech and all that now. They lost a lot of money, but those who are running established

businesses, the airlines, the shipyards, the harbor, those are money making ventures. You cannot you cannot go wrong in that is it. So, it doesn't mean that GLCs are all bad. GLCs can be good. But so far in our country the GLCs have been quite disastrous. Okay, first of all, you you take government funds, taxpayers money unlimited and you give it to the GLC boys to start playing in the market. Uh. They go out into the market and they compete with other real businesses, real private sector companies who don't have access to unlimited taxpayers money. They really have access to only their

own money. But partly a lot. The real private sector, but the GLCs go in. They operate in the same business. They operate in banking, they operate in plantations, they operate in manufacturing, they operate in name it, they are they are there. So, you are crowding out the real private sector in the country. And it's unfair competition. And they on top of that the GLCs usually they can get most things that they want. They can get licenses, quotas, monopolies. Very famous. And they just have to they are basically backed I mean effectively they are backed by the sovereign guarantee of the

government. That's it. They just pick up the phone, they call, they get what they want. The private sector companies they can't. They can't. They have to really compete, fight and struggle. But the GLCs have so much upper handicaps in their favor to outcompete and push out the real private sector in the country which generates the real jobs. Yeah. Right? Now, the private sector companies are also the ones who pay the taxes. The most taxes. taxes, whatever taxes to the government which is used to fund the GLCs to compete against the same private sector companies and put them out of business.

So, over time you are poking your in both your eyes, you know, using chopstick, you know, sharp pointed chopstick. Poking your eyes out. That's what is happening. Yes. Yes, you are you are taking tax payments by the private sector, creating GLCs to go and compete against the private sector and put them out of business. And then you wonder why we don't collect enough taxes or why the government does not have enough revenue. Yeah. The government has to deficit funding the budget has to be deficit funded every year. We don't really It would be because there's not enough

revenue for the government. Last year's revenue was 340 billion. The budget was 421 billion, you know. So, they borrowed about 80 billion. Why? Because you cannot collect enough revenue because you poke both your eyes with a sharp chopstick. You put yourself out of business business. And then you impose e-invoice that actually costs more money to the private sector. They don't understand the concept. Oh my god. You are taking taxpayers money, Yeah. creating companies, GLCs, to put those same taxpayer payers out of business. Right. And then you you expect to collect more

and more taxes every year. Yeah. That's That's why the the government deficit will never go down. Now, our debt now is more than a trillion government debt, huh? Wow. It keeps going up. It's not going to go down. Because you cannot generate enough There's not tax dividend enough tax dividend being generated. Of course, you cannot quantify something that did not happen, huh? Yeah. If the chicken did not lay the extra one egg, you cannot say, "Hey, the chicken did not lay one egg." But, you know the chicken can lay eggs. If you take care of it, let it do what it should do. Yeah. You know,

the the goose If the If the goose can lay the golden egg, it'll lay the eggs, huh? Yeah. But, we have been we have been obstructing this for decades now, huh? So, over time, huh, our economy, our private sector, has got this huge concrete thick slab of concrete ceiling on top of his head. That's a good way to put it, actually. Through through which they cannot break through because of uh you know, they are they have to compete with GLCs Mhm. who are using their money and taxpayers' money. And they have various other benefits. It's It's interesting you put it that way. You know what What What

And then I want to finish up one. And then and then they go bust, isn't it? They all this what we're talking about today, what we're reading in the papers, the scandals, the corruptions, all the really poor business management like that fashion thing, 43 million, they only got back 3 million. Uh Those are very poor business calls. So so then they they lose money, our money, then here's a double whammy. I know. Bail out. Our money. And take our money. Our money again. And and and and dump it into their black hole again. So then you realize that the government

finds out that oh no, we have even less money to spend now because of this all these bailouts. Dah tak cukup tax revenue because you know, businesses are impeded in so many ways. You're not collecting the highest maximum potential of tax that you can get the economy get it right because you stifle them so much. Right. But what you have collected you burn it in the bailouts. And then for other purposes, development, the annual budget building up the country. Tak cukup duit, go borrow. Then you find that oh oh, our our government debt is going up billion above a trillion, keep going up this

year. Like as though what you Don't you have any sense in your head? This is how it works, isn't it? Oh, our our our economic policy advisors, elites in the that is surrounding this ecosystem including, you know, the ones that are so-called managing it, you know, with uh they I can tell you they speak perfect English, man. They are Oxford trained, you know, in the you know This is what we get, guys. From textbook managers. So this is This is a equation that I can never balance. Tak boleh. It is forever short. The dog chasing its tail, you keep going in circles. You're

never going to catch up. You'll never settle the issue. I have a better analogy for you. Okay? And because I like The Godfather movies, I have a better analogy for you. It's basically, yeah, you paying upper for the hitman to come and actually shoot you every day. Yeah. shoot yourselves in the foot. I mean, we have monopoly for rice. Okay? We have monopoly for the electricity distribution. Right? You know, our our handphones are I remember when the handphones were big and it cost a a ton of money. Today, we can buy at a fraction of what it used to be and it is basically

uh what you call this handphone that we we hold uh uh can perform duty uh that more than what they used to do when they send people to the moon. And it's cheaper. Why? Competition. You know? Instead, our electricity bill keep going up. You see, I want to just uh give you an analogy. Today, um these glasses uh Uh-huh. I got it from Pinduoduo. Uh-huh. This is two I had an I had an episode that but go ahead anyway. This is two ringgit uh crazy yeah from China The reason The reason is because why it's so cheap uh Uh the Chinese, they look at us not as Malaysia, you know? Uh

They look at us as flying time. Or shipping sailing time uh Uh Because if they if they if they ship out the product, these glasses, from the southern part of China Uh Guangdong or whatever, Uh they just draw a line the distance to KL and the distance to Port Klang. Uh-huh. That distance from southern part of China to KL, Malaysia could be less than the distance from the same point in China to another place in the northern part of China because China is so huge. Which they also send their goods to be sold. So if they can sell their goods inside China at a certain Why is it not selling to us?

Yeah. And you draw a circumference radius the entire circle you know Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar it's all within the reach of the the logistics circle. That's how they look at it. They don't look at oh we're going to sell overseas international market that is they look at the logistics the the distance and the transportation cost you need that's it. So you see now we are in because you mentioned the rice monopoly. You see we are in the center of Southeast Asia. We are we are always the most strategic I know. real estate in this world I see in this world.

Around us flight time of 1 and 1/2 hours you can go to India, go past Indonesia, China. You can go past Philippines. A bit further you can hit Japan, Australia. Our location is fantastic. And then you see you talk about rice rice monopoly just now. Around us uh I think nearly all the rice is being grown in this area. You have Vietnam which produces rice, Myanmar, Thailand, even Indonesia and China southern part of China. Imagine uh if we promote rice as a growth industry by itself. That means uh we buy rice from anywhere we process it, make it to other rice based products,

rice products whatever flour, meehon whatever and other manufactured products. Or we mill rice or we do and go into rice research food. We come out with new strains of rice. We focus on rice not as a monopoly business given to one fellow, but we open up the sector, you know, and anyone can because you must be able to import and export rice. If you're going to import If you want to become a food processing company that processes rice products, huh? Rice cakes, rice pudding, whatever, you know, you can go to supermarket buy some package stuff, you know, made of rice, huh?

You want to do that, you must be able to to import export as as your business requires, you see? Not you get restricted by oh oh there's a monopoly in this country. So if you want to you want to import you want to buy rice, you got to go and meet the monopoly license holder, lah. That is not conducive to creating a market. But if you look at the at the rice producing countries around us and look at their rice fields as how the pindodors look at us from China, hey these guys are within 1 and 1/2 hours flying time, you know, we have to sell there. Then we open up our own

creativity. You you know you know you know which I don't. Say I tell you something, huh? Okay? Our rice fields on a scale compared to Thailand or or Vietnam, huh? We really cannot compete because why? Acreage, huh? We it is you know agriculture is very simple. It's a question of scale, right? So uh acreage we cannot compete even if we mechanize, all right? You know what I look at when I look at the rice field in Kedah when I balik kampung? Long time not balik, lah, huh? Okay? Do you know how beautiful and peaceful it is? Right? You know what I would do if I was in

Kedah and I was running Kedah? I would build a tourism industry like nobody has ever seen before. Okay? The Mat Salleh all, we are talking about high uh high value expenditure of tourism, not these backpacker types. Ah. Okay? This is what they want to see. They don't have it in their country. Right? They want to see cathedral, they go to Italy. They go to They go to France. Okay? You want to see rice paddies, peaceful. You want to go, you know, in a kampung village that they have never seen, you come to Kedah. All right? I tell you I'll charge a bomb. But you don't

We build an industry that actually is high budget. Instead, let me move it a bit as I said, I could run oil and gas money. All right? That one company, yeah, that was bailed out. Okay, that we mentioned just now. Okay? This It was a privately held company in terms of majority. You know. Okay? But um because the institution went in. All right? It It is a public listed company. It is a public listed company. Effectively, it's not a GLC when it was this one when it was bailed out, which is mind-boggling to me. See? You imagine the the rescue injection injection in 2024 is 1.1 billion.

Through MOF in a special vehicle using money the redeemable convertible loan shares. I can tell you one thing, well, well. Okay? The loan shares, you convert them. Okay? All right, it's sure going to get converted, man. All right? This is taxpayer bailout. That is uh Okay? That is that in 2025. That was not the first bailout, huh, guys? Second part, I said. How they justify it? Oh, don't don't forget, huh, the liability is about 11 billion. Net current liability was about 11 billion. Okay? You still are not out of the woods, huh? Okay? The excuse was 2,000 vendors. All right?

It's It's political. Wait. Don't say it. You ask me, huh? There's no business sense. Yeah. Sometimes this political interference, huh, it uh it they just stamp over stomp over all the common sense and business sense, huh. You see, huh? Yeah, since you mentioned this uh bailout, you know the the what was that name? That uh Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera, huh? Mhm. LTAT, huh? They had some issues, huh, so there was a bailout which was uh put in place for them. But before that, huh, they tried to fix the problem by themselves, huh. I think the CEO was involved in that by by uh doing uh open

market, huh. Open market private sector bailout. They wanted to sell one of their plantation subsidiaries, like where the big one, huh. Right. Uh I think they they were asking They was the deal was worth like one over one over billion, huh, 1.15 billion. And they got a private sector company to come and make an offer, huh, which was uh KLK, Kuala Lumpur Kepong, huh. Mhm. They offered to buy out the plantation business. Right. So uh LTAT would gain 1.15 billion in cash and so they can use that to to set their books in order, huh. Right. Settle debts and this and that, whatever, huh.

But it became an issue by this uh Ketuanan boys, huh. Yeah. The The Tongkat Warriors, huh. Uh the Tongkat Warriors. They say, "Why are you selling uh GLC company to a non-Bumiputra Chinese-owned company?" Became an issue, you know. Okay. I mean, they they made a lot of noise, huh. Mhm. Uh to say that all this uh what hoo-ha that they created did not influence the subsequent cause of events. I think it's a bit far-fetched. I think it did. So the deal that you did. Right. A real private sector player bringing their own money in a new way by partying a lot. Right. Not not tax base money, yeah.

Okay. And they're willing to pay 1.15 billion which would have helped to settle the the problem. Right. So of course then the the non-bumi company KLK would acquire the the plantation assets. But they the Ketuanan Melayu boys didn't like it. Mhm. So the thing that you did. So at the end of the day the government issued government guarantee my half for 2.0 bit 2 billion ringgit. Up to 2 billion ringgit. Against against which I was that government guarantee in hand, LTAT went into the market. They went to the banks. And borrow some more. And the banks and I think the banks also

GLC banks. So I tried to find out their names. I couldn't. All our banks are now owned by by so. GLIC. They went to the banks and financial institutions with the government guarantee and they raised funds. I think yeah. 1.8 or 1.9 some billion like that. And they got the job done. They settled whatever everything. So and then they took the plantation company private. That means they bought back their shares. Their shares. That's what That's what they did. Mhm. So so at the end of the day we guaranteed it. Mhm. Government guarantee is a taxpayer's money at risk again. Mhm.

Because the ultimate paymaster here will be the government. Mhm. Supposing for any reason you know the whatever loans cannot be paid, you can call in on the government guarantee. That's what That's what a government guarantee is for. Right. So again taxpayers funds, taxpayers money and the burden is then shifted to the taxpayer. Yeah. When there was already a viable proposal by a private sector and company using their own funds. But you didn't allow it to happen because of happened with that oil and gas company actually you know. That's it. Yeah. Because of these politicians. Right.

If you just let the market forces you know Yeah. At least at least in the bailout section let the market well that wouldn't have been a bailout that would have been just outright sale of the assets la. Right. It would be fine. You know what they would always say in this kind of situation sometimes they always say which we hear often la. Oh you know if you allow the company to basically go out go under jobs will be destroyed. Thousands of people like you mentioned it's not the 2000 Vendors and all that la. Thousands of jobs are at stake you know. That's not true.

Because assuming KLK had bought the plantation assets for that 1.15 billion. What they're going to fire all the rubber tapers and the workers and the technicians and all the estate managers they must be insane. Where they going to find new workers? Yeah. They'll probably put in a new CEO and a the new what board of directors and stuff like that. But below that most likely everybody all the jobs will be saved. Yeah. You cannot simply go and replace all the workers in a in a in a plantation company especially when you're buying it for over a billion ringgit. There'll be a lot of workers there.

Yeah. You cannot just say okay you're all fired. We're we're you've all failed we're going to bring in new workers. It doesn't work that way. Yeah. Like how you fire the lorry driver I don't the tractor driver Yeah. So all these stock were oh you know jobs will be lost la. To just frighten the people it's not true. Say full of crap. Let me put it this way. I personally uh guys uh I personally did two public listed company restructurings. They were PN 17 companies. Okay? I have personal experience of how you restructure this kind of mega companies. I brought in private money. Okay?

I think one was almost 50 million the other one was about 78 million. Private money. Shamshul. Okay? This Buddha Melayu hitam. All right. What kind of journey? Why do I need government help? I don't even need government help. I tell you guys, huh? It's crazy what we are doing with our taxpayer funds and our taxpayer saving not not taxpayers also institutional saving like you know, the pension funds. You know, in April 2026, huh? Just to give you another one that is mind-boggling. This was reported, but they never named the institution. Okay? MACC arrested a former GLIC punya CEO

on a share trading scheme, huh? That lost about 300 million in public funds. In stock transaction. That is that is outright thievery, huh? They froze 450 million across 62 bank accounts. And they won't even name the individual. They don't even name the institution. So guys, what is happening to our country? Right? I tell you what, let me and Syed run this whole crap, huh? You know? We probably solve this whole JLC GLIC ecosystem in 12 months. Oh my god. It's really you know, the audacity is crazy, my friend. Our public, I hope they they need to be aware, huh? Our public has to

know, understand a bit more. Okay, why the public the public actually has better things to do in life, huh? But because so many billions are involved, that's why you mentioned 140 billion ringgit, huh? Over a period of time, but what, 8 years or something? It has gone down to bail out. All these things, lah. So, that means our money, as you said, lah, we don't have money for other purposes, like building hospitals, schools, universities, roads, highways, huh? This is what That's why we have to keep paying the toll. Because the government Touch good way. The the Touch Good Way to build to build

roads for the people, so we have to keep paying the tolls. Yeah. Uh and then our communication system, you know, it took a while before we went from, you know, the 5G and all that. We always like lagging behind our neighbors and things like that, huh? Because Touch Good Way, lah. Mhm. So, we pay for all these shenanigans that happened in the country. So, since it's a recurring thing in this country, yeah, I think the Malaysian public should educate themselves a bit more on what is how things are being done in a in a not proper way, lah. Yeah. And uh my my straight away I can tell you, huh,

if the politician say something, huh, don't believe them. Yeah. That's the safest option. Yeah. Guilty until proven otherwise. Cuz they're all talking crap, you know. Yeah. Huh? They like to frighten people. This one like, "Oh, you know, if you let this company go under, you know, so many thousand people lose their jobs." All that. No, that's not true. Yes. I'll I'll just we please digress a little bit, huh? Remember in the '80s when we were in the US, huh? Yeah. It was the age of the great corporate raiders. You remember KKR? Kerkorian. Uh Kerkorian? Kerkorian. Yeah. T. Boone Pickens.

T. Boone Pickens, yeah. He's a guy from Texas, I think. Yeah. Of course, he's an oil man. T. Boone Pickens. And uh Carl Icahn. Carl Icahn was uh he was one rough dude, lah, huh? I think he was Jewish. That guy was uh cuz I've heard I've heard him talking. But this guy is a ruthless businessman. But he did everything according to common sense and but the free market principles and he brought out the best in whatever companies that he did this He did the takeover. Takeover. Yes. For example, the famous case is TWA, Trans World Airlines. Okay. I think he took it over.

Wow, that's a long time I've ever heard of that name. 80 85. I think he took it over and shut it down or something like that. But what Carl Ican did was he said when he went, he took over TWA. So again, people say, "Oh, you know, he's thousands of people going to lose their jobs. This guy will break up the company into pieces and sell it, you know, by pieces." They call it asset stripping. No, that did not happen. But what for example, Carl Ican TWA, they I mean, they were flying all over the world, but they had very lucrative routes, for example, New York to London. Mhm.

But they were not making enough money. Mhm. For some reason, poor management, whatever. Mhm. Sloppy, whatever reason, they were not generating the sufficient return which they should. Let's say compared to other airlines. They were not doing their job well. But that route Mhm. New York to London is a is a prime route. Everybody wants to have you know, access to that route. You see? Right. So Carl Ican when he took over the company, he he sold off the The the route to other airlines. That's it. Because he said, "Look, you can't make money selling tickets on this route.

But the route itself is worth more than your tickets now because you are inefficient. Because you are inefficient managers, you don't know how to do this business. The route by itself has become is like selling the house that you are renting last time. Right. Right. Right. know how to rent the house. You So your your your rental income is less. So somebody comes and says, "Might as well just sell the whole house." You see? Which is what Carl Ican did. Right. He sold the route so he to some other airline. Right. Now, did he create unemployment? No. Because when the other airline took

over, their plane still take off on the same airport in New York and land at the same airport in London. So, the ground handling, the airport services, the airport fees are all the same. Nothing changes. The airport still makes money from the airline. You need maintenance crews on the ground. You need the what? To refuel the plane, the food supply, everything. The uniforms may change uh because this new company has taken over that route. The air hostess might wear a different color uniform. The pilot must wear a different color uniform. But, they're still pilots. You still need pilots to

fly the planes. Even the planes could be the same planes because most planes are leased, isn't it? Yeah. So, when you want one airline shuts down a route, the other airline takes over. They will take over the planes. They will take over the plane on sometime with a lease with a new lease la. So, in other words, the pilots' jobs are still there. So, you screwed up because it is a financial screw up. You did not know how to manage the finances. The business viability is still there. So, some other person who's got better smarts on managing the finances. Usually, they paid less la for it la

when they take over. So, so now they they have better finances and the business is viable. So, the the business still goes around. Everybody's job is preserved. So, to say that when you, you know, when a when a company goes under that all these jobs will be destroyed, that's not true. It's fake. A new owner, a new manager will come in who's more efficient, who'll be able to create more jobs. You know, I I go on on that score. I have another point I want to talk uh buddy, I want to mention. I'll be back. Let's take a quick break. Quick time out. My dear friends, our

metric shows overwhelming number of our viewers are not yet subscribers. Appreciate very much those who happened to subscribe and like our episodes. It does not cost a thing but 2 seconds to hit the subscribe and like button. It helps to spread our content further and build this movement to save the country. Thank you so much. Now, back to our episode. Okay, guys, thank you. We're back. Now, I have this interesting penny anecdote about another business icon, which is none other than Elon Musk. All right. You know, when Elon took over Twitter, okay, I want people to think about it,

right? Remember our GLCs huge and bloated. Name any GLC. I guarantee you. Okay. All right. When he took over Twitter in October 2022, so that's like what? Now, 4 years already, yeah? Almost coming to 4 years, right? Uh oh, or three 3 years plus, he reduced the workforce uh from about 7,400 500 employees down to 1,500. So, we are talking about 80% reduction of workforce. I can tell you guys what. All right. Now, you say, "Okay, kesian those people." Right? Now, here's the thing. If he can reduce it and look at X right now, it's still running and pumping and making money. Okay?

Do That means what? Those jobs were not needed. So, these guys, either they were they were employed to boost up the number for whatever reason, okay? Because I know one thing about corporate. All right. So, I think the same applies in GLCs. The bigger your empire is in the corporate in the in the in the in the in the corporation, the higher your salary is. Well, GLC has a political role to create employment. Exactly. All right. So, we are allo- misallocating resources. resources and the company and money. And the company goes bust. Yeah. And the worst thing is these

companies go bust, lose money, and then we use our tax money again bail out. and bail them out. It is a cycle that is so vicious. Why do you think our wages are stagnating? You know? Yeah. So, you know, misallocation This money, if you have a in the liquidity in in the banking sector in a very competitive banking sector, liquidity is there. Okay? Can you imagine the money pumping out to the private sector SMEs? And your point just now about the GLCs, if uh let's say there's no bailout, and the GLCs are allowed to to operate you know, at at at the open market.

They have to compete just like everybody else. Uh So, then there'll be more competition, more creativity, you have to work harder, things like that. And to survive, you must constantly keep innovating. You must come up with new products, new services. You just come up with new ways of selling the the same product, new new opening up new ways of opening up new markets. I mean, keep up with what is happening in the market. So, that will create what do you call this? The famous our high-income high-income nation high-income jobs. Because you're constantly innovating.

So, you So, you'll be looking for people, and also people also move up the value chain. They'll also learn to to be more creative and more more productive. Which means that they they warrant a higher income. They they deserve to be paid higher income. That's how we move the economy up to higher income. Not by waving the magic wand and saying minimum wage is now 1,007. Now, the latest is the Minister of Economic Affairs just a couple of days ago. He said he wants the minimum wage to be 2,000 ringgit a month. And he said the statement he made, now the ball is in the in the you

know his bosses feet, lah. It's up to the boss to decide what the we're just like one heartbeat away, you know, for the minimum wage you got 2,000. Of course, the workers will be happy, but I'm telling you it will cause a lot of chaos. A lot of more businesses will shut down. They cannot afford to pay these kind of minimum wages, huh? But this is where these people wave the magic wand and and won this high-income nation. Cannot. You have to allow market forces to operate. You cannot have unfair players on a uneven playing field, like the GLCs coming with government funding,

public fixed sector funding, uh monopolies and franchises and all these other advantages that they have to crowd out the market, yeah? And then you expect the market to pay higher salaries. You know, you know that doesn't work. I did uh I did a a couple of episodes before this. Um Uh we talked about the SME, the private sector SME, is mainly our ethnic Chinese SMEs. Okay? So and they are the highest total in aggregate tax tax base. And then we pump into the Bumiputra GLIC, GLC uh ecosystem. Right? And like you say, bail them out, give them high salary, they make losses, bail them out.

And our private sector SME is having pressure all over from China, Very difficult. from the How to compete, brother? From Pinduoduo. Yeah. How do At the end of the day, I'm so worried that our Chinese dominated SME, private sector, is going to wilt and die, you know. We're we're in trouble, then, lah. Yeah. We're in serious trouble. Serious trouble, you know. Before even we fix our internal problem, huh? Our private sector that is paying the biggest tax paying base, huh, is going to die out. This is something I might And then, huh, GLC, yeah, okay. Oh, I could see all

GLC, yeah, I lose 300 million, huh, company go this one, huh. You know, what accountability? You get a golden handshake, you get a board receipt somewhere. Let's Let's look on the uh been on the bright side, la. I would recommend the GLCs, huh. You have uh so many advantages on your side. You have access to unlimited funds. When you screw up, you have access to unlimited bailout, la, or bailout, la, huh. Mhm. You have so many things on your side. This is uh I mean, the sun shines every day Mhm. in your in your world, la. Every day the sun shines, huh. As they say, make hay

while the sun shines. So, when things are so easy I mean, especially with funding from the government and access to taxpayers' funds is always there, use it as an advantage. Yes, it is uh it is a crutch, la. It is a tongkat, la. But, use it as an advantage to compete. Venture out into the real world. Venture into say Venture into into real overseas markets. Compete with the with the non-Bumiputeras, huh. Go to China and compete. Learn to compete because No, we have to learn. Because because the thing, you know, you know like you are a businessman, no money, no talk, okay?

You need money to do everything. So, they have access to funds. They have access to money. So, use this opportunity while the sun shines, huh, to uh Yeah. to uh What do you call this? Uh to learn to compete without having to go back to the government all the time. Learn to stand on their own feet and be totally independent of taxpayer funding. You know, You know what? then they become part of the the real world, the real free market competitive system. Instead of just depending on the government and IV drips and tongkat, whatever. Which is not good. But say why I, you know,

I divert a bit on this company. You know, people who are put into a situation where they got there by parachute, I call it. All right? You have you You know what? You give them money also. They don't have the wherewithal, the experience to actually be able to really run it properly, but more compete. This is the problem. This is why I believe GLCs need not cannot exist anymore. I think the politicians they're doing it on purpose. They want people to depend on them. Yes. That is the right answer. The The politicians do not want the the Bumis as especially to be completely

independent and be able to think on their own, stand on their own feet. They forever want the Bumiputras to be dependent on the politicians. Yes. If you want anything, I'll don't worry. I'll get it for you, but you vote for me. Yes. You know what? Just a quick one before we work out. I want to talk about We don't want to be bitching nonstop on this podcast. We look at answers as well. Okay? But I just want to remind the viewers. Just go back a few episodes. Um I had a I had a young Malay boy. Okay? Say he started his business. Uh on the roadside selling burgers Mhm.

uh with 4,000 ringgit capital. Wow. Okay? And it is a fascinating story. If you missed that episode, go back and look for it. Okay? uh local area burger Today he has two food trucks. Do you know what How much is one food truck? About 100,000, you know. That kid started that Malay boy started that business 4,000 ringgit saja. Sleeping in a small shop lot. Rumah dia, dia buat the burger, perfected it. Okay, until it's ready then only he open up. I tell you. Malay you bully. Tapi ya bila kita dapat all these parachute CEO ah with the huge salary and all that ah, they cannot compete ah.

Don't me ah. Go fly kite ah. Okay. Anyway, let's talk about let's talk about how we would handle this GLC and GLIC ecosystem. I say let me kick it off ah. I think we have to have enforced insolvency. No more bailouts. That's the first thing I would look at. They should be allowed to fail ah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. And don't worry if the business is viable ah. Somebody will pick it up. The people, the workers will not lose their jobs. Somebody else will take it over. Right. Maybe at 10 cents to the dollar. That means they they they get it cheaper ah. But the business if it's viable the jobs

will still be there. Mhm. Yeah. You you need the the plantation workers to keep the the plantation running. Yeah. They will not lose their jobs. Right. So So we must enforce this. No more bailout. Period. So don't listen to these politicians that when they say that oh so many thousand jobs will be lost. That's not true. Yeah. Some may but not not overall more. Yeah. You know, I mean the we talk about government procurement. Say you are great procurement guy you always talk about this ah. Ah? Okay. You know these monopolies and whatnot. We really have to get over this thing ah

this spoon feeding this the crutches mentality because the cost is too too high too high. And you are not only you are wasting today's resources. But because the government debt is so high. Yeah. Government debt is over a trillion now because the government has to keep borrowing money to maintain today's operations. But those debts are due in the future, you know. Yeah. Which you they will pay from future tax collection. Actually, our children are already paying that our children will be paying today's debt. Yeah. Those they are unborn. The the money which has been spent

today, which basically went down the tubes today, our children will be paying taxes to pay off. So what about those things that are that are needed when our children are growing up? The things that they need, the infrastructure, the roads, the development, whatever. Maybe there'll be less, lah. Mhm. So lama-lama jadi macam Afrika and all those countries, lah. Yeah. Because your And then the population keeps growing. Uh now it's 35, almost 35 million. It's going to hit 40 million and it keep going beyond that. So you find that there is more intense pressure,

you know, pulling from all sides. People ask, "I need this. I need" Of course they will need so many things, huh. The government will feel really stressed out trying to meet all the necessities in the country, in the society. So that's when things start breaking down. I I think yeah, one I think we have to uh we have to really do a forced uh you know, there's no such thing as bailout. No bailout. No bailout whatsoever. Second part I look at it actually really we been talking about it. We need to break up this whole GLC uh ecosystem. Break it up completely. I don't think we should have any more

GLC whether at federal level or national level or even state level. Because come on, man, the SMEs are available. Not just that, we can see we train our own people. Tak kira Melayu ka bukan Melayu ka, we all are capable at doing it. All right. I I tell you we should float it. Those that are existing float it and open the licenses to whoever that can bring in capital. Yeah, force them to compete. Right. As long as they can compete in the market freely openly with everybody else. The The The already the job is done. They have to compete without all these useless monopoly. That means they can

only go up by pushing the other fellow down, you know. That's That's not how it works. Yeah. It should be win-win, isn't it? I know. Trade trade, you know, there's something called value and in the purchase. Trade is an exchange of goods. Actually it's an exchange of your productivity and my productivity. There must be a meeting point. Yeah. So that's when both sides benefit. Mhm. But if I by decree or by the powers vested in me, I say that no, you cannot do this. You cannot venture into this. If you want this, you come and see me. I'll sell it to you at the price that I determine because

I'm a monopoly or I'm oligopoly. No choice. Take it or leave it. Yeah. So of course you have no choice. Yeah. But you will be you will be you will be the short you will be holding the short end of the stick. You your friends, your neighbors, your family, the entire society. So the society becomes poorer because they pay more and they get less. As simple as that. Yeah. So that's what That's what the GLCs are doing. I think on that note that's I I want to wrap it up. Um uh I don't have much more I want to add up. The only thing I cannot understand I can tell you guys one thing. When I was

running my own corporation, uh 70% of my revenue was coming from overseas, you know. It's weird that people say we cannot do it and we cannot give it to the private sector. So, I have to I have to tell you about the what GLC can also stand for, lah. Let's wrap it up at that point and then we close it. A GLC, if you lose money, then it becomes a government losing concern, lah. Government losing concern, lah. That is what GLC is. Because you if you lose money, any concern that loses money is what a losing concern. But if you're a government company that loses money, you

become a government losing concern, lah. GLC. But there's another angle to it. If you do it often enough, the government will lose the elections, you get kicked out. You really become a government losing concern. I think at this stage, we need to really save this country. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. See you again.