Dear Natascha,
Your cousin Natalie is becoming the death of me. Yesterday, after the surprising tsunami that changed the Malaysian political landscape, the Malaysian stock markets have suffered a big slump. With some of our cronies gone, the investors (who bribed our cronies) are planning an exit strategy. She was afraid that our evil Lord would send her to exile to another outpost, perhaps, Bhutan, where she could do nothing there. With the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition winning only 63%, our financial operations might take a big hit pretty soon coupled with the horrible subprime mortgage crisis from the United States.
I see Black Monday for the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) as a new opportunity rather than a crisis for us. I can only blame on those spineless investment bankers from Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch for taking the chance to tell their investors that it was time to cash out. Of course, the investors are afraid that their pork barrel projects in the Malaysia economic zones would fall apart, and hence they start to take cover. It is a herd effect, as I see it. Our Enemy has made some efforts to rebut us, particularly, those MPs in the opposition from Penang has already started with the message that they would welcome investment. It is not enough because all those management consultants, investment bankers and industry leaders are all on our side. In fact, it is a perfect ploy for you to plan your strategy for the next Singapore General Elections in 2011.
The keyword is fearmongering. You can start with George, your favourite closet liberal foreign minister, by talking up that a political change in Singapore would cause problems in the economy. You need to hammer this slowly like how those epidemics start from small interactions and subsequently hitting the tipping point. If we do it slow and steady, by 2011, the peasants would start thinking that if they are constantly made to fear that if they elect the opposition parties and win one more GRC, the Singapore ST Index will fall and jobs will be lost. Spin it more with high unemployment rates and high risk of losing foreign investment from the US and China and once again, we would win 82 out of 84 seats in the parliament. Trust me, with how brainless and money-faced Singaporeans are, you can imagine where their votes would end up. Of course, always end with the Minister Mentor and his gangster message that the opposition would send Singapore to hell if they won the elections.
You might need some grassroots support, for example, Lucky Tan, to continue telling the blogosphere how good the Singapore government is and what a big risk that the Malaysian voters are taking or try the bimbo blogger, Molly Meek, with her singing praises of the Prime Minister's leadership. The other bloggers will cry foul of fearmongering but continue to do that would be fantastic.
I am not so worried about you, because the opposition in Singapore is not business friendly. As long as they don't understand economics, they would always lose. After all, what's freedom of speech if you cannot feed yourself? As long as they have no understanding of business, they are no way close to those people in Penang. That would be the key to how we utilise stock market crises for our own benefit.
Continue on our evil work, as chaos only serve us better on the long run.
With no intended pun,
Uncle Screwtape
