International Relations Issues

| So you think Communism is a sin? | No, I think Communism would be great, | If it were an attitude of the people… | … rather than a government for the people |

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November, 1993 at the Seattle airport, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating was preparing for the APEC summit. Continually pressed for a response to why Mahathir was not attending, Keating replied “Don’t ask me any more questions about Mahathir. I couldn’t care less frankly whether he comes to Seattle or not next year. APEC is bigger than all of us – Australia, the United States, Malaysia, Mahathir – or any other recalcitrants.”
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The press wanted something sensational. Everyone knew Mahathir disliked the West and Japan. He disliked APEC especially because it was the brain child of Bob Hawke and allowed non-Asian states to become interdependent with Asian states.
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History tells us that Mahathir would look for any excuse to distort Australia’s relationship with Asia, and Keating always had a slighting word for his antagonist.

Many Malaysian’s are proud of Mahathir. He was smart. Damn smart. So was Keating. At least with his tongue.
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-> Read a Malaysian perspective about the comment ->

-> An Australian perspective about the comment, and Australian foreign policy ->

-> An Australian news article ->

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| So between 1971 and 1990, Malaysia had four 5-year New Economic Plans | Oh, and this was under PM Dr. Mahathir right? | Yup. but he often had difficulty getting his cabinet to do what he needed though | A little ironic for an authoritarian government | true, but he solved this by putting those who disagreed into inactive posts | well, I guess he thought they were too recalcitrant |

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So now, every Malaysian above the age of 20 knows the word recalcitrant. And virtually no Australian knows the word!
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Incidentally, I was in the Canberra Children’s Choir with Keating’s daughters at this time (it’s had a name change).

Division of Labour

|… but I thought that controlling the value of the currency had something to do with the division of labour | it does, when the government prints more money, the currency is devalued… | … and our largest employers outsourse our jobs to Asia |

Milton Friedman's Theory (one of)

Quantitative easing is what non-economists call ‘turning on the printing press’. In extreme circumstances, governments flood the financial system with money, easing pressure on banks by giving them extra capital. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, won the nickname ‘helicopter Ben’ when he floated just such an idea earlier this decade. US economist Milton Friedman had originally said it would be theoretically possible for governments to drop large amounts of cash out of helicopters for the public to pick up and spend.

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| Did you know that Milton Friedman believes that inflation is caused by the government printing more money than they have in currencey reserves? | Why would the government want to print more money, thus lowering the value of the dollar? | Well inflation is a delayed reaction. The immediate reaction by the public is ‘woo hoo we have lots of money’ | Oh, I see. so the government prints money for an immediate cash flow in the populace, thus securing seats for their party in office? | yup exactly, and there is a word for this in fact | What is it? | forgery! |