And look at the Singaporean Malays, they were effectively (marginalised). That’s what chinese leadership is all about. I’m not being racist, but that’s the reality. Of course, someone will come out in defence of Singapore saying the Malays there are better-off that their counterparts in Malaysia, but to them I would say “Menang Sorak Kampung Tergadai” They are left with nothing. Would any Malays dream to be Singapore Prime Minister? Pretty soon, they will become archaic and only good for archaeological research if not anthropological research.

or simply Speculators (George Soros and the likes), isn’t this what what Dr.Mahathir was crying foul in 1987? Only now, the world would admit what Dr.Mahathir said was true. Read Joseph Stiglitz book “Making Globalization Work” to see the failure of IMF.

And today, IMF is busy `helping’ to saviour the rich countries. I wonder, what kind of prerequistes they would asked the rich (now bankrupt)countries before the money will be channeled to them. Is this a form of global cronyism as the highest level? Bravo Dr.Mahathir. You’re by far much more intelligent than many of your conuterparts from the West.

Most people think of money as a ‘Token for Exchange’ but this idea actually blinds us to the host of evil greed behind this game of exchange as it is played and led by America. For a grasp of why the USA’s (and likely, the world’s) financial system is now imploding, money should be understood as nothing less than “Promises by the Financial System” but also nothing more than this. Let me explain.

When you render a service or sell a product in direct exchange, it means that you accept the other person’s promise of a specified service or product in return, to be delivered upon exchange or in the future. Of course, such direct exchanges are rare and confined to certain trades only. But if you trade for money instead, you are in fact accepting a promise made by the Bank or the Monetary Authorities that you would be able, in the future, to receive any kind of goods or services of that monetary value by passing on this promise. In the meantime, if the money earned is in physical currency, you can keep it under your pillow or ‘save’ it in the bank, the only difference to you (but not to the bank) being that the former way won’t earn you interest. (Just to jump forward a bit, with financial institutions collapsing like dominoes, just ask yourself what you are going to do with your life savings in money, stocks, bonds, insurance policies or other securities?)

If the money you earned is physical currency or a credit payable by another bank and you save or transfer it to your bank, your bank can use it to create more promises of a great many times this value to grant to its customers by way of loans. In the case of transferring bank credits, the other bank will have to shrink its loans to its customers by the same multiple of the credit value transferred out to your bank.

Conversely, if you take a loan from the bank, it gives you money (in cash or by crediting your account) which is, as said, promises of value made by the financial system and in return for the loan you pledge to pay the bank back in future money, which is just as much also promises of value made by the financial system. But your pledge itself is no more than your own promise to the bank, backed by whatever asset, if any, that you may have.

However, money is not the only form of promises of value made by the financial system. All paper or electronic records of ‘assets’ capable of being invested in but practicably backed ultimately by money (such as stocks, bonds and all kinds of derivative financial ‘products’ like swaps, options, futures, indices and insurance policy backed products) are also nothing more than mere promises of value by the financial system. Thus, the financial system is a huge and complex bubble of layers upon layers of web-like interrelated promises by financial institutions, originally resting upon the production, consumption and trade in actual goods and services but subsequently multiplying (or ballooning, in fact) as a result of the financial system’s operators and players creating and trading more and more promises of value in the form of monetary ‘assets’ (which assets I shall call “generators”) in their search for monstrous profits.

The financial institutions comprise the Monetary Authorities, the banks and all of the institutions with monetary assets as their sole or main value and whose main business is creating and trading in monetary assets or promises.

These institutions are the financial system’s operators. The players comprise not only these institutions themselves but also their investing clients, advisors, fund managers and brokers. The operators seize upon “generators” to do two things: (1) Grow the volume of these investment “generators” regardless of their ‘quality’, such as by creating a self-perpetuating loop of easy mortgage loans to borrowers with doubtful repayment capacity that push up real estate prices which in turn demand ever larger loans; and (2) Bundle these sub-prime loan assets with other ‘better’ monetary assets to create new investment derivatives that would thus ‘merit’ better ratings. Inevitably, such toxic products seeped upwards through the whole financial system and markets, from the loan-making banks and institutions (Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac) through the entire US and world community of investment banks, insurance giants, pension funds, equity funds, government sovereign funds and other investors, all of whom have their fingers and pie in these ‘securities’ and the stock and bond markets. Of course, through the last decade, US sub-prime mortgages are not the only potentially unravelling “generators” that have ballooned through toxic derivatives and made billions of profits for the system’s operators and players.

Carrying such a huge toxic load of potentially worthless ‘assets’ that must keep multiplying in order to keep profits rolling and the entire financial system ticking, the whole bubble had to burst at its weakest point, which is when sub-prime mortgage promises began to default and those first of the over-extended loaning banks started to go under. Empty promises built on layers upon layers of unsustainable promises will keep imploding downwards until your money is no longer safe in any bank or securities, the banks won’t or can’t loan to businesses and thus the economic system also collapses. So the US government has no other choice but to take over these worthless promises to the tune of US$700 billion (if this is enough!) to be redeemed by the sweat of present and future generations of US tax payers, the blood of more victims of US conquests for plunder and whatever else only god knows is in store for you and me.

The abandonment of the gold standard was nothing less than a fraud of the highest degree. The federal reserve in the 60’s created more US dollars than they were able to pay in gold reserves so that they could fund the Vietnam war and other welfare schemes. The closed the gold window once they noticed they have not enough gold to pay.

Greed is a naturally occurring behavior. Who doesn’t want to get more things in life? We can complain about ‘greedy’ people all the time but many a time we are greedy as well (when we have the change ).

There used to be two fundamental limits to greed: the gold standard and fear/risk of failure. (in layman terms: your paycheck and your fear).

Well we all know that the gold standard is gone, meaning the central bankers can create any amount of money out of thin air, as they please. Not only they enrich the elite, we suffer because of inflation (more money chasing limited goods==>rising prices). A truly functioning productive free capitalist market causes PRICES TO DROP, NOT RISE (savers get more purchasing power and increases standard of living). Money printing and a credit-based system is what brought us this misguided belief that “growth brings inflation”.

As for fear: What happens when the government says “we will (implicitly) guarantee (the ultra rich bankers, government link companies) that you will be bailed out no matter what? Not to mention that many of these greedy folks are tied to the government, who in turn will use taxpayer money to bail them out.

With the gold standard gone and fear taken out of the picture, we have nothing left but endless greed.