Will Poor Malaysians be Driven To This?

Financial pressures in Indonesia are driving more and more families to give up their children, a report says.

The report, by the charity Save the Children, is being jointly launched with the UN children's agency UNICEF and the Indonesian government.

The report found that about 500,000 Indonesian children are in care institutions, but only about 6% of these are actually orphans.

Economic concerns, including the rising food prices, are partly to blame, Save the Children says.

See BBC report HERE

To make matter even worse, the child care centres leave very much to be desired, see the Jakarta Post story about the dreadful state of Indonesian child care centres HERE

What about Malaysia then?

Given the massive increase in the prices of basic foods like, bread, milk, eggs, and just about every other type of food and drink during the past several months, and now the approximate 42 % increase in the price of petrol and diesel, which will undoubtedly further encourage even more price rises across the board, Malaysia could be heading to a similar state to that is occurring in Indonesia, where financial pressure on families is forcing the dumping of children onto child care institutions?

I certainly hope this will never happen in Malaysia, but it is, given the current state of affairs, certainly now a distinct possibility.

Wages in Malaysia are too low, especially at the lower end of the scale, there is no minimum wage and, wages are stagnant and jobs are becoming scarcer.

Due to the greed and profiteering mindsets of some employers, more and more jobs are being taken away from Malaysians and given to immigrant workers, who are paid a pittance, and have little or no benefits, they can therefore, to all intents and purposes, be regarded as modern day indentured slaves.

It has been widely reported that they are usually brought in by well connected syndicates who rake off a substantial part of the meagre wages of the foreign workers they bring in.

Passports of the workers are retained by the syndicates this means that they, the foreign workers, are entrapped and have no other choice but to comply with whatever the syndicates demand.

The authorities need to work together to ensure that Malaysians are not driven to the brink of poverty and in their desperation have no other choice but to give up their children to welfare homes, orphanages and other such places.

The Malaysian government is living in cloud-cuckoo-land, Bank Negara Malaysia says that inflation for 2008 will be only 4.2 %.

If this is a rate of inflation of 4.2% per month I may be inclined to believe it; even then I think it would still be on the low side!

See BERNAMA report below:

"June 05, 2008 16:36 PM

Inflation To Rise To 4.2 Percent This Year, Says Bank Negara

Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz speaking to reporters after officiating the 12th Malaysian Banking Summit in Kuala Lumpur. She says inflation is expected to peak in the first quarter of 2009 before moderating in the second half of next year to less than 3.0 percent. Pix: Samsudin Mohamad

KUALA LUMPUR, June 5 (Bernama) -- Inflation is expected to exceed 5.0 percent this month as a result of fuel prices hike announced yesterday and rise to 4.2 percent from earlier estimates of 2.5 percent for the whole year, according to Bank Negara Malaysia.

Its governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz said today inflation was also expected to peak in the first quarter of 2009 before moderating in the second half of next year to less than 3.0 percent.

"For the first half of 2009, inflation will hit about 5.3 percent, and after that it will decline to less than 3.0 percent. This is our preliminary simulation of the price adjustments and this is what it shows on a month-to-month basis," she told reporters after officiating the 12th Malaysian Banking Summit here.

According to her, the country's inflation rate is still relatively lower compared to other countries, and she urged Malaysians to take advantage of the present situation and adjust to it.

Zeti also played down suggestions of a possible interest rate hike, saying there was no urgency to convene a monetary policy committee meeting outside the regular schedule.

"Right now, we will monitor the inflationary problem and see whether there are indicators of second-round effects (of the fuel price hike) and what the demands are, because at this point it will have an impact on growth and global growth is also moderating," she said.

"So the risks to OPR (overnight policy rate) development are being carefully evaluated and assessed and at this point in time, we don't consider it of any urgency to call a special meeting of the monetary policy committee and we will make that assessment going forward," she added. On the country's growth, Zeti said the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) remained between 5.0 and 6.0 percent.

"Growth will depend on what the government does with the cash compensation and the cash benefit from the lower subsidy, and also on development projects.

All these can ensure that a 5.0 percent level can be achieved," she said.

However, she said there may be some impact on consumption activities although the lowered estimate was still higher than the country's average consumption growth.

"Our preliminary estimate is that consumption would actually grow more than 10 percent, but it may decline 1.0 percent this year," she said.

"So there is not very much significant adjustment in consumption and if it declines to 9.0 percent, it is still above average from the consumption growth that we've had," she added.

-- BERNAMA"

Do any of the readers of this blog believe this rate of 4.2 % inflation for 2008?

It sounds like pure unadulterated bullshit to me!

The rich get even richer, and the poor get poorer.

Ain't it all a bloody shame?

LIES, DAMNED LIES & MEANINGLESS ECONOMIC STATISTICS!