Rimmed Potatoes

Minimum wage hike? Comments I put in a thread.

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If I actually think about it a little... I think the issue is thus: we're  discussing the actuation of gross levers  like "minimum wage",  when the net impact on the economy also bears non-trivial impact for the overall design of the economy on a national scale. This isn't to say we should be Stalinising the place.  I mean... if you consider the cascade of government spending, and how it ends up in the pockets of the citizenry (or not), there are layers and  layers  of  diversion which subvert any intention to administer welfare via a  single gross tweak. I'd be very interested to see (or build) a model of Malaysian public sector expenditure, with somewhat fleshed-out budgets and programs, and the laws surrounding each program/entity at each tier, and then to have this discussion about gross levers in the context of such a model.

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Back to gross tweaks (huge caveat, I actually know very little about how federal funding is divvied up, but I don't see encouraging effects as a layperson)...  I propose (instead of a higher minimum wage),

(i) {{turn the nation into a giant dormitory}}
an expansion of the BR1M into a blanket universal basic income program. [In contraposition, all subsidies on basic necessities should be removed.

(ii) {{{make discretionary spending expensive}}}
We should tax the shit out of water, petrol, electricity (it's all too cheap in Malaysia).] The UBI fuck... just change the name and call it UBI-R1M instead, should cover regulated  accommodation and hygiene, regulated nutrition (not just any food, that's stupid), and unlimited educational opportunities specifically designed to flow downstream to industrial requirements via standardisation of skill-job protocols (a language framework).

(iv) {{{make knowledge transfer more agile, because we have  a shit for beans education system}}}
MOE funding: funds for non-industrial disciplines (liberal arts and sciences)  should be reassigned to MOTAC or MOSTI; funds for industrial education should be reassigned to MOHR; a fraction of MOD funding needs to be re-apportioned for military education.  The functional managers should be  managing their own budgets in the development of their talent functions. In fact this should happen across the board... and MOE should not be managing pedagogy, instead moving into an administrative role, such as is played the administrative office in a school - the actual budgets and programs for upskilling meat should be parcelled up and shoved into all the respective MOXs.

I like Israel, I like Singapore, and I like China... and you know what they have in common? More sticks, and  less sugar... hahaha."