Lordy Wannabe

Morning drives have become more pleasurable of late thanks to newcomer BFM radio station.

Anyone fed up as I am with the never ending Man from Mars Women from Venus slant of certain stations can tune to the business talk by the BFM trio.

No more gossips, no “he doesn’t understand me”, or “she talks and never listens”, just pure business.

Great music too. Sometimes.

The BFM trio was running through the headlines when Malaysia’s foray into F1 came up, and they began to chat about the cost of running a team.

Someone bandied RM1 billion as possible figure; and afterwards they joked on the “Malaysian made, Malaysian build” aspect, hoping that it don’t go the much talked of Proton’s power window way.

To many, RM1 billion (nine zeroes) is A LOT of money, but going by the current standard, it’s hefty but not that much.

Maybank recorded a RM1.97 billion in loss and no one bats an eyelash.

Tenaga’s RM944 million loss is not yet a billion.

PKFZ cost is bandied as going upwards from between RM4.6 billion to RM12.5 billion, and while there is much furore there, the pace of stopping this leakage is quite miserly.

Malacca is looking at a RM40 billion bridge to Sumatra to bring in the tourists.

(What were they thinking?)

Really, RM1 billion spread to a year is thus no big a deal.

Just recently a former MB was quoted as stating a RM3.5 million price tag for a property as “cheap”.

Yup. It’s cheap all right.

Going by the good politician’s standards, the Ipoh house we are trying to sell would be like super duper, downright criminally, dirt cheap.

Sigh…

My buyers have had to apply for personal loans to pay the deposit and one just sneaked ahead of the other by placing a token payment whilst waiting for his to be approved.

I wonder thus how many Malaysians fall into the “RM3.5 million is cheap” category.

A huge income disparity is, after all, never good for any country.

Then you would have something medieval a society in the have not (comprising the have only a bit, have just enough and have a bit more) and the really have.

When I use to stay overnight at a friend’s condo in Bangsar all those years ago, we have this habit of watching office goers scurrying to work from the balcony.

We’d imagined ourselves as Castle lords looking down on the ordinary folk trying to eke a living.

Only the truly rich can do this, we’d say often with a make-believe rich folk laughter.

How stereotypical, eh?

Is it far from the truth, though?