Yamuna

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

Why? Why did they have to go and ruin good omens!!

[ksampoh@MyOwn Inc @ksampoh]

https://t.co/RdDnIZNV71

[Don't Mind Please @DoNotMindPlease]

Very bullish piece on Malaysia by Bloomberg

Malaysia = safe heaven

1. Foreign central banks now own a record 36% of Malaysia's sovereign bonds, from 29.4% a year ago.

2. These bonds returned nearly 12% to dollar investors over the last year.

3. The ringgit has surged over 14% against the dollar since early 2025.

4. Malaysia's status as a net energy exporter protects it from global oil shocks.

5. Local bond yields moved only 15 bps during recent Middle East volatility.

6. The government raised its 2026 growth forecast after the economy beat expectations.

7. The World Bank now views the nation as a regional safe haven.

8. Fuel subsidy costs hit $1.8 billion in April due to regional conflict.

9. The central bank maintained interest rates at 2.75% during its last meeting.

10. Global funds bought $947 million in local notes during the month of April.

Huat ah

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

BNPL, buying on credit.. positive for busker, negative for the public

[BFM News @NewsBFM]

Malaysians' long-standing saving discipline is being eroded by the convenience of digital payments such as QR codes, said Chief Statistician Uzir Mahidin.

He noted that earlier generations were more disciplined in saving through structured habits such as stamp books and post office savings.

🧵1

[Brian Willott Farms @BrianWillott]

They should change the name to "Strait of Schrödinger". It's both open and closed at the same time.

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

An idea for MY @hannahyeoh

[Lusca Fusca @luscafusca150]

Por volta de 2013 a cidade de Chengdu tem adicionado trepadeiras em seus viadutos para conter ilhas de calor e o difícil trabalho de tornar essa infraestrutura mais agradável.

[Charles Santiago @mpklang]

9/ This is the same company, driven by the same individuals, rebranding their billion-dollar business model. The Cabinet must reject this. What Msia needs is a binding bilateral labour agreement w real legal consequences, so tht workers stop being exploited, decade after decade.

[Boeing 747 @Boeing747S8]

And Malaysia is going down the same drain. Worth the long read.

[Josh Hunt @iAmJoshHunt]

This one will require a stiff drink.

In the early 1990s, the government came up with a clever idea. Instead of borrowing money cheaply to build hospitals, schools, and roads, it would get the private sector to build them and then pay the private sector back over 25 to 30 years. The Private Finance Initiative. PFI.

The attraction was obvious. You got a shiny new hospital today. The bill didn't show up on the government's books. The cost was deferred into the future. Politicians got ribbon-cutting ceremonies without the awkward conversation about borrowing.

It was, in effect, the nation's credit card. Buy now, pay later. Except the interest rate was extraordinary.

The total capital value of everything built under PFI was around £50 billion. As of March 2024, there were 665 PFI contracts still running across the UK, with roughly £136 billion in remaining payments stretching out to the early 2050s. These are payments public bodies are contractually locked into. Hospitals, schools, councils, government departments. Paying for buildings that in many cases were constructed twenty or thirty years ago.

And the terms are extraordinary.

PFI contracts were structured so the private sector would not just build the facility but manage its services. Cleaning. Maintenance. Catering. Portering. These services are bundled into long-term contracts with built-in inflation increases that the public sector cannot renegotiate, cannot exit without paying massive penalties, and often cannot even fully scrutinise because of commercial confidentiality clauses.

In one case raised in Parliament, a hospital was charged £333 to change a lightbulb. That isn't an urban myth. It was cited in Hansard.

The NHS has been hit hardest.

According to parliamentary analysis, the capital cost of NHS PFI projects was around £13 billion. The total repayments are estimated at around £80 billion. And the peak of NHS PFI annual repayments isn't even here yet. It arrives in 2029. The bills are still going up.

In 2020-21, NHS trusts paid £457 million purely in interest charges on PFI contracts. Not services. Not maintenance. Interest. In the last five years, NHS trusts have handed over more than £1.8 billion in PFI interest alone. We Own It calculates that money would have covered the starting salaries of over 50,000 new doctors.

One NHS trust, Essex Partnership, has reportedly paid back 27 times what was originally borrowed. Some hospitals are spending more on PFI repayments than on medicines for patients. And remember, these repayments come out of the same NHS budget that's supposed to fund patient care, staff, and equipment.

Scotland got it just as badly. Audit Scotland reported that Scottish taxpayers will pay a cumulative £40 billion for PFI assets worth just £9 billion. North Ayrshire Council will have paid £440 million by 2038 for four schools that cost £83 million to build.

Now here's what makes this worse.

Many of these contracts are starting to expire. The buildings are being handed back to the public sector. And the NAO has warned of significant risks around the handback process, including cases where public bodies were dissatisfied with the condition of assets being returned to them. Decades of payments. And some of these buildings may come back needing significant further investment.

So what actually happened?

The government could have borrowed money at significantly lower rates to build these hospitals and schools itself. Sovereign borrowing has always been cheaper than private finance. Instead, it paid the private sector to borrow at a premium and passed the inflated cost on to the taxpayer. The private sector took the profit. The taxpayer took the risk. The buildings are now ageing. The debts are still being paid. And the services that were supposed to benefit are being squeezed partly because so much of their budget is locked into contractual obligations they cannot escape.

PFI wasn't investment. It was an accounting trick. A way for governments to build things without the borrowing showing up in the national debt figures. It made politicians look fiscally responsible while loading future generations with obligations they had no say in and no ability to renegotiate.

Both parties did this. The Conservatives created PFI in 1992. Labour massively expanded it after 1997. More than 700 projects were signed. The coalition eventually wound it down. The current government scrapped the latest version. But the contracts remain. The payments continue. And the damage is already done.

This is what it looks like when a country chooses to buy its infrastructure on hire purchase instead of investing properly. You lock in above-market rates for decades. You lose control of the assets. You tie the hands of future governments. And when the bill keeps coming due, you're told there's no money for doctors, teachers, or social care.

There was always money. It just went somewhere else.

[Harris Zainul @harriszainul]

Unpopular opinion: The root of the discontent here is poor performing MPs not worth the money we pay them. Reducing compensation does nothing to solve the quality problem and will only further deter people entering mainstream politics.

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

😂😂

[Alwyn Lau @alwyn_lau]

The way the uncles behind me are talking about the Iran War, it's like they spoke to 47, Bibi, the new Ayatollah and even Xi just before coming to the kopitiam.

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

Great respond, humour appreciated

[Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt]

Ryanair CEO addresses his recent spat with Elon Musk in new press conference:

"The Starlink people believe that 90% of our passengers would happily pay for wifi access. Our experience is tells us less than 10% would pay; He (Elon) called me a r*tarted twat. He would have to join the back of a very very queue of people that already think I'm a r*tarded twat, including my four teenage children. But we do want to thank him for the wonderful boost in publicly. Our bookings are up 2-3% in the last few days. So thank you to Mr. Musk, but he's wrong on the fuel drag. Non European citizens cannot own a majority of European airlines, but if he wants to invest in Ryanair we think it would be a very good investment."

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

OMG.. this book..!

[Echoes Of Thoughts @Nuriwa_J]

Using this book to find cos sin tan instead of using scientific calculator

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

@plustrafik @llmtrafik Traffic is crawling..!

[Jeff Ooi @Jeff4Malaysia]

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim promised the new taxes - the hitherto unverified 'luxury taxes' that will only affect 15% of Malaysians - would only affect the super rich (the 'mahakaya'), but many ordinary families are starting to feel the pinch.

SCMP duo Joseph Sipalan & Hadi Azmi took pain to illustrate why Anwar's new ‘luxury taxes' had hit the middle class where it hurts.

For example, Malaysia’s tax base is overwhelmingly middle class: households earning between RM4,850 and RM10,959 ringgit per month number nearly 3 million, forming the backbone of government revenue.

The top 20% per cent of earners, known as the “T20”, have monthly income that exceeds RM10,960.

But analysts warn this bracket of around 1.5 million households is swollen with families only marginally better off than the rest.

Yet economic planners at Putrajaya seem they couldn't care less.

The new taxes (expanded SST included) also extend deep into services once seen as everyday essentials for Malaysia’s urban middle class: insurance, financial planning and private education from preschool to university.

The breadth of the 'tax reforms', announced with little warning, had triggered a wave of public anger... and it's mounting by the day!

Regime change imminent?

https://t.co/Z38FB72A9l

[Charles Santiago @mpklang]

Importing fruits in Malaysia is a manufactured crisis. We are food insecure — 60% imported to fulfill domestic demand amounting to RM 78.8B in 2024.

Why transfer the burden to people when govt policies fail?

(1/6)

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

Sipping on my coffee on a Sunday morning wondering.. is it time for @Khairykj , @rafiziramli and @niknazmi to come together to form a credible voice as the nation start looking forward to the next GE…

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

@GrabMY Hi Luna. Have tried this but there’s been no response

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

@GrabMY .. did you agent just tell me to go ahead and eat eggs covered in fungus?!

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

@GrabMY @GrabMY Team’s been silent. Will appreciate an update on this

[Yamuna @YmnS101]

@GrabMY The number has been shared