What The Toot!

In recent years, the Malaysian economy seems to be going downhill. Sure, we are still enjoying growth in terms of GDP, but which country doesn’t? We were once on par with Singapore and South Korea, only to be significantly behind them currently, relatively speaking.

I am here to provide a simple and elegant explanation to that without the use of any complicated economic models. First you must understand two traditional Chinese culture/ believe/ superstition/ mythology:

• Nian beast (年兽): Comes out at every Chinese New Year to terrorise people and harm children. Also associated with bad luck and all. It is sensitive to loud noise and the red colour, which is why the Chinese use firecracker and red-colour decorating to scare them off.

Photo under CC License by Leonard G. Click for larger view. Look at how scary they are.

• Firecracker: Firecrackers are believed by some to scare off evil spirits and attract the god of wealth to people’s doorsteps. Different varieties available, with a lot of different visual effects Typically contains a fuse and explosive powder.

So, according to Wikipedia article on firecracker, Malaysia has banned any form of firecrackers under the Malaysian Explosive Act “in 1991 as a result of the increasing injuries among children (especially Malay) during Hari Raya festive season. Ironically, the injury cases caused by playing firecrackers continue to increase every year since Malay children turned to home-made firecrackers such as bamboo cannons as alternatives to commercial fireworks.” (verbatim from Wikipedia)

I personally think firecrackers should only be played with adult supervision, and becuase *some people* are prone to injuring themselves playing firecracker doesn’t mean it have to be banned. This is because banning it has dire consequences for the economy.

See, every year nian comes out terrorising people, causing bad luck. Banning firecracker means not scaring Nian beast enough to ward them off. Furthermore, no playing with firecracker means no scaring off evil spirits and no attracting the god of wealth and prosperity.

As a result, economy goes into slump. Perhaps this is why China recently lifted its ban on firecrackers? Look at how the economy is booming! So as a summary, banning firecrackers in Malaysia causes Nian to terrorise people, no god of wealth and prosperity, and thus - BAD economy.

Oh. And I think banning firecracker is a violation and a disrespect to Chinese culture and tradition. If only the government would allow firecracker to be played freely (freedom, not price) again, I am sure the countries would be more harmonious. We would also see children of different races playing firecrackers together, further strengthening the national unity.

Banning firecracker = Bad.

Each dollar(or any unit of money) we spend doesn’t actually contribute only $1 to our economy. Think about it, if you earn $1, and you save say… 20% of that, you end up spending $0.80, meaning, somebody will earn $0.80. He in turn will safe 20% of that, and somebody else will earn $0.64. The process goes on and on and on….

So, to calculate the sum of the money earned by everybody, we get a sum geometric series.

X = a(1-r^n)/(1-r)
Where:
X = sum of money earned
a = initial amount
r = percentage of earning spent
n = number of times the process repeats itself (in this case, n approaches infinity)

So, for the above case, we get X = $5. Which means, your $1 actually contributes about $5 to the economy.

Now, think of corruption. You know how people say “easy come, easy go”. The corruption one gets usually comes easily, which means it goes easily as one tends to spend all of it. So, we get r = 100% (or approaching) = 1

By the above calculation, you’ll see that X = infinity (or approaching)! Think about it, each $1 actually worth something approaching infinity, and that, my friend is how we can contribute to the economy by means of corruption.