Thursday, June 12, 2025
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What will Myanmar be Like in 10 years

By
zhm
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If you are asked to state one unique profession within Myanmar, fortune tellers might come into your mind. People here consult them whenever fortunes do not favour their circumstances. Yet most are simply prying on people’s misfortune to earn themselves a living. For how would Myanmar look in ten years time, we will not seek the answers in the soothsayers parlours at the base of pagodas. Instead, we will look at the current state of affairs objectively and scientifically to come up with a possible outcome on the path that the country will proceed.

As Xi Jinpeng has stated in his Governance of China book, the development is like a boat. Once you miss it, the boat is never going to come back for you. Myanmar has missed the boat to an enormous opportunity to progress from 2017 until now. After the stellar growth years of 2012 – 2015, the people chose an incompetent leader who spoke well on stage and committed economic suicide by focusing on nonsense and lack of focus on things that matter for economic development. Myanmar has become the poorest country in ASEAN in 2017 (World Bank data) and has never recovered from that infamous standing. It has fallen even behind the hyper populated Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, because of the economic mismanagement under Su Kyi era, instead of credible investments in infrastructure, Myanmar was left to dwell on the remains of the past infrastructure, a significant portion of which was built before 1960s. Her administration most visible infra projects are not railways, highways, bridges or roads, but ‘Welcome to xxxCity’, signs put up in every town and city across the country.

FDI has fallen well short of what other ASEAN countries of similar population are garnering. Vietnam and Thailand are receiving inward investments in billions of $, while the FDIs into Myanmar is still at miserable double digit millions on average for the past four years.

Short of employment opportunities, most educated and capable has gone abroad. Think of 5-10 million strong Myanmar diaspora in Thailand. You can go into almost all shops and speak Burmese and they would bring out one staff who can communicate with you. Because of lack of investment in infrastructure and diminishing FDI, Myanmar workers are deprived of the skills needed to earn increased wages in a competitive global environment. They have no experience with latest technologies nor are they well verse in productivity in an office environment. The route learning that the universities taught them only prepares them to memorise. They had not learn how to self learn or even google search, let alone use Ai or programming. Even word processing skills are elementary.

Years of not focusing on production and exports have led to continuous budget deficits that added to the national debt burdens. If you are not producing anything you cannot become rich. If you think of the products that Myanmar produce, other than natural resources, not many things would come to your mind. CMP perhaps. Agriculture products in unprocessed form. That’s it. How can we possibly come out of the poverty trap!

Recent attempts at price controls over foreign currency, gold, rice, edible oil, etc., are fulfilling their intended purpose. Inflation has not gone down. Due to political instability and losses on the military front, local business confidence is in the trenches. No one is opening new shops, renting new premises, but just buying gold and $ and amassing them, adding no value to economic growth. Hence stagflation sets in. It is not going out of fashion any time soon.

People are scared. All cash the rich in Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw have, are being directed towards the great escape to a foreign land. The well to do in the second tier towns have used up their buffer funds to relocate the whole families into the safe heavens of Nay Pyi Taw and Yangon. Who would have thought that Lashio would fall, with the largest regional military command (RMC) centre as well as an airforce? Who would then give the definite assurance that nothing will happen to whatever you own in Mandalay? Who would guarantee that Mandalay would not experience what has happened to Lashio. Once the artillery shells start to rain down upon the city, it would be too late to move out in an orderly manner by then.

With losses of major territories on most states and some divisions, this civil conflict is not likely to end in the foreseeable future. That would commit a lot of national income into the war efforts, depriving other much needed areas of their budget allocations, further downgrading the education system, public healthcare and infrastructure development.

Which country are we starting to look like?

A country where the local wages remain stagnant. A country where the poor remains under the poverty line and extreme poor are forced to eat out of rubbish. A country still at civil war in some significant parts of the country. A country that relies on its own diaspora form overseas transferring back $ to augment their national income. A country with poor infrastructure, slums and with a bad safety record. A country where their diaspora was doing most menial jobs overseas ranging from maids to cleaners to nurses to construction workers.

Can you imagine that country? Its name starts with ‘P’.

Myanmar is not there yet in totality, but on the verge of becoming one. But unless we shake up and shape up quickly, we will be that country with all the above characteristics, in less than half a decade.

Consider yourself warned my fellow citizens!

Why Price Controls Will Not Work

By
zhm
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Any first year student of economics would be able to tell you the price of goods and services could only be determined by the forces of demand and supply and any effort to affect otherwise would ended up creating consumers’ and producers’ surpluses, which would eventually result in negative externalities.

Yet efforts across the world by different governments to somehow control the prices of consumer goods are uncontrollably persistent, from rich first world countries who exercise rent controls (EU) or control the property prices (Singapore), to developing countries to those in the badly managed countries category.

Price controls are not new. In fact, in the code of Hammurabi by the King of Babylon in 1800 BC included the set prices for the wages of craftsman and labourers some 3800+ years ago. Nowadays governments of various forms set controls by blunter blades of political pressure and haphazard response to inflationary pressures. Recent data from the World Bank showed that 89% of developing economies meddle with price of energy, 76% with price of food stuff, 13% with price of construction materials.

What mechanisms are there to control prices? The common ones included the price floors, where the minimum price that has to be paid to producers such as farmers and industries of essential national goods. Then, there were price caps aka price ceilings routinely set on indispensable consumer goods and services. We also come across techniques such as rent control in developed countries to provide affordable housing to the poor and the homeless. In mid 2019, Germany voted to freeze rent for 5 years. And price caps on a variety of goods and services exist in Spain, Holland and French. The current Biden administration even set controls on some drug prices in USA. At least half of the developed world has the minimum wages set into law, which itself is a form of price control.

Reasons for price controls are uncomplicated; the altruistic reasons remain to redistribute the economic burdens and wealth, to provide stability to the prices and the economy and potentially deflate the price of essential goods and services. This in turn would secure economic stability. Price caps aka ceilings help the poor afford necessities of life, while price floors prop up livelihoods of farmers. Keeping buffer stocks also stabilise volatile commodity prices.

Do they really work?

The obvious advantage especially on price controls on essential goods and services is to prevent traders and producers from price gouging. The secondary objective may be to prevent monopolistic behaviour among suppliers. The setting of minimum wages ensures at least a basic standard of living for wage earners.
As of now (August 2024) in Myanmar, the government has imposed price ceilings over foreign currencies, gold, rice, edible oil, bus fare, etc., with varying degree of initial success. Plus minimum wage law has already been in place since 2015.

Let us look at experiences of some developing countries.

Venezuela even has its parliament decree a fair price and cost law, to adopt the concept of price controls into law. They even made inflation illegal, i.e., it is illegal for traders and procedures to increase the price of goods without approval from government.
Yet years after its adoption price controls, Venezuela now has the world’s highest inflation rate. There are reduced availability of staple goods, with supermarkets having more and more empty shelves.

People have difficulties in finding cooking oil, chicken, powdered mil, cheese, sugar and meat. Government using its regular inflows of foreign currencies through the sale of crude from its vast oil reserves, imported by spending $7.5 billion on food imports to alleviate the shortage. But due to incompetence and corruption within the administration, vast shipment of food rotted before reaching the shops and public.

The famous Albert Einstein define insanity as to do the same thing over and over agin and expecting a different result.

Another South American country did the same thing. Argentina fixed prices of nearly 1,500 products as of last October, to control its on food prices. Now the country is facing an inflation rate nearly as high as that of Venezuela. Controls did assure a kind of stability in the country, preventing riots and chaos due to hyper inflation. But they came at a cost; Argentina has no economic growth since 2008, wages increases has fallen steadily behind less than inflation, making people lose their purchasing power and become steadily poorer.

The bad and the ugly

However well intentioned price controls are, they cannot overcome the economic forces of demand and supply in the long run. Price caps will cause the creation of excess demand and setting minimum prices will produce excess supplies.

Producers are better off at not producing rather than selling at government controlled prices, that would cause them to make losses. If they are forced to sell at these price ceilings, they would some how produce a lower quality version. Due to sub normal profits or losses, ceilings lead to underinvestment, hoarding and black markets.

Once started, these controlled prices are hard to remove. Economic theory suggests that it is best to implement ceilings when market prices are low, yet politics is such that elected officials are always slow to react and started with these control measures when they are faced with prospects of hyber inflation. It is better not have the controls in the first place, if the timing could not be right. But it is easier said than done in public affairs.
Prices are used to allocate scarce resources efficiently. Price controls distort thesis signals, leading to inefficient allocation, resulting in unwanted producer or consumer surpluses. They can even cause severe shortages if prices are set near or below producers’ costs, which discourages production. They cause disruption in the market, losses for producers and a noticeable change in quality. The final long term impacts would be shortages of those products under control, rationing, deterioration of quality, illegal markets, unofficial channels.

What about us

Foreign currency: The controlled exchange rates were put in place post 2021. Since then the spread between the CBM rates and the reality has gone wider and wider. The current CBM rate hovers around 3,000 Kyats per $ whereas the actual rates are now above 6,000 Kyats per $ (100 differential). There is simply no one transacting at the former controlled rate. CBM said small change is available for people going abroad but the truth is there is no such bank offering that facility at this point of time. If you need FX, be prepare to look high and low for black market traders and offer them whatever they asked. Feel free to report them to authorities if they did ask for an exorbitantly higher swap value. Foreign currencies are in short supply. Even some government department has to resort to outside purchases as the wait list and duration become unbearable. Even though most of the underground traders have been put into prisons, house arrests or been on the run, the situation is heading south, without an endless and sufficient supply being released into the market by the CBM. Even if it is achievable, the administrative process itself will enrich only the insider few and some financial institutions. The controls are going to get harder and harder to administer without further damage to the confidence on the recoverability of Myanmar economy.

Gold: Gold entrepreneurs have gone underground for the bulk of trading. The actual gold shops are only selling a minuscule amount of pure gold at controlled prices when the price controls started. Then the arrests came. Then promises by them to stay within the price limits. Now, they are selling at price ceiling set, but added on an enormous amount of handcraft service fees so that the final transacted price equate to the market price of gold.

At the time of writing, the government/Gold Association set price is at 47 Lakhs per tickel while the market offer is at 75 Lakhs per tickel (60+ % differential). In essence, consumers paid the market price (set price plus the handcraft service fees added). Only gold shops benefited by cheating honest customers who sell gold by offering them only controlled rates. Again, the gold sellers who want to receive the market price has to hunt around for who knows who of gold shops and deal with them in secret. So much for the success of price control operation on this gold. Probably the only beneficiaries are gold shop owners who acted as if they have been given license to cheat consumers and a few good men from Special Investigation branch who are at liberty to blackmail the shop owners in return.

Just Blame the Government Please!

By
Charlie Greene
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Starting with diplomats from the West to Myanmar diaspora working abroad to the working or unemployed locals around your neighbourhoods, everything happening in Myanmar could only be attributed to the fault of one i.e., the current military government. Diplomats, especially those who are doing nothing now for Myanmar development at present, kept on blaming the administration for every single failure, and the only purported solution from their point of view seems to be bring back the crooked Su Kyi back from the dead. The blame is even more notable from those who contributed nothing but hot air for Myanmar stability and recovery. At least China and India have been constructively engaging Myanmar on many fronts, putting the money where their mouth lies.

Myanmar diaspora continued their funding and support of terrorist activities within the country, cheering on the NNCP (NUG. NLD, CRPH, PDF) terrorists and EAOs who has done nothing but brought heartaches and agonies to the local population in many destroyed towns and villages. While these compatriots working overseas continue to enjoy their earnings in stable currencies in peaceful countries, spare a thought for those who had to run away en mass from Kyauk Mae, Lashio and Thandwe, because the embolden attacks backed by their $ and cyber support. The irony is if these supporters are given an ultimatum of either having to stay in Koh Kant, Kayin, Kayah, Sagaing or in Nay Pyi Taw, they would have chosen the last city whole heartedly.

The working or employed locals do not fare so well either. Most of them are gifted with dubious ethics, spending their times wisely playing video games, tiktok or watching porn, doing the bare minimum work and expecting to be treated like rare earth. Putting an extra effort or carpe diem do not apply to their brilliant minds. Yet they would be world #1 in the Guinness Book for the population who swear, smear, slander, stain and sully the government, our military and its leaders the best. How can this be! MI examines the reasonableness behind the blame game based on genuine anecdotes.

The risky world of Microfinance

ABC micro-finance (names have been altered) was the biggest lender after the government in Mon State, prior to Covid. The company has a supervisor/manager Ms Alice Aye Mon who went around with her assistance to disbure micro loans to the farmers in different townships of the state. Instead of actually supervising the distribution of funds, she eventually ended up touring the state with her her young toy boy, while just leaving the funds the company disbursed at the branches with just the branch officers (who are simply responsible for collection of debts). She bribed her assistant to refrain from reporting the infringements to the company’s management. Alice eventually became so daring to the extent of creating false invoices and hotel vouchers and went AWOL in totality.

Due to her sheer adeptness, Ms Saw Yu, a branch officer in Ywar Lut village of Chaung Zone township managed to steal 55 million Kyats (a lot of money then), through just lending all the money to herself, using the farmers documents to create fake loans. Another branch officer in Thaton township, Mr Aung Mg also used the same modus operandi to lend the company funds to himself (both of them, using documentations from previous borrowers), defrauded more than 120 million Kyats from the company, sending his uneducated daughter to Japan and setting up businesses for his sons, using these funds.

When the investigation came, Alice took no responsibility at all, saying this was solely the fault of the branch officers. Only when the investigation discovered her fraudulent claims and mismanagement altogether, she suddenly disappeared and tried to half-heartedly apologise to the management for her misdeeds through an email.

All three of them has been found guilty of Criminal Breach of Trust, Theft and Misuse of Company’s funds and properties. Aung Mg had served his time and gave his farmlands to the company in lieu of some of his debts. Alice Aye Mon and Saw Yu are still on the run from warrants of arrests issued by the courts and the police. The competencies of the country law enforcement ensure that they would remain loose unless the company hires bounty hunters themselves. The company had wanted to enrich the lives of farmers and the rural population yet eventually lost their confidence in the integrity of the local staff. And hence, it since withdrew from lending across three different states within the country.
Besides the farmers and the poor being deprived of access to micro finance, more than twenty permanent jobs were lost. To lose a company that is supplementing the government efforts to develop the rural economy speaks of volume of the lasting damage to the development of these states at grassroots levels.

Yes, blame the government please, for the poor and farmers not having access to finance. Blame the government please for not providing employment opportunities to crooked staff and over-motivated employees. Blame the leaders and ministers for failing to get the companies to come over to less-developed States and Regions.

The most polite population on earth

If you do know how to read Myanmar language, just look at the Facebook pages of anti establishment, pro Su Kyi forces who want the country and its military to fail. Their pages are full of swearing, cursing, condemning, profanities, foul languages, especially on leaders and military personnel, based on fake news most of the times. A few who tries to tone down the rhetoric were tyrannised and intimidated in various forms to cower away from speaking the truth and for civility.

As an historical example, based on fake news that previous President Office Minister Soe Thane has kept or stolen $11 Billion of government money (totally maliciously created information), he and his family were always sworn and cursed at in the anti establishment Facebook pages, even if he is acknowledged as most honest, uncorrupted minister of pre-Su Kyi era, by the international community. His successful children were also tormented, slander and cyber bullied. Su Kyi supporters even wrote to the University where his daughter is a tenured professor to sack her because of her being the daughter of an alleged killer. These criminals also coerced wikipedia to alter her biography to include the falsehood of her being the daughter of a killer. Mind you, he has nothing to do with the change of government, which had happened due to elections fraud by Su Kyi administration.

How would the government and its leaders function under such circumstances! How can they ever get proper respect from other countries, if people from their own countries, keep on attacking and accusing them and their own families based on malicious agendas and allegations. “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes!,” said Mark Twain. Yet, there is not an ounce of self policing or control, on these platforms. The current 66D criminal charges are also weak. Most people were just given fines amounting to a couple of hundred dollars.

Observe the Facebook situation in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam or Thailand. Such a contrast from Myanmar in terms of civility and courtesy in these countries. Oh no, it is not the fault of Facebook, Su Kyi, terrorists, uneducated population, celebrities and artists, or ethnical teachers. It is the fault of the government or Myanmar military. Just blame the government please, for all the impertinence, insolence and impudence happening online.

The un-population

An insinuation of having to deal with the majority of uneducated, untrained, untrainable, unschooled, unread, illiterate, uninformed population in this country would definitely spark a tumult in the Facebook with a barrage and bombardment ranging from expletives to death threats set upon the writer or the speaker. Mind you, Myanmar population want the freedom, especially the freedom of speech; just not when other people counter their illogical and incoherent blasphemies with facts and data.

Let me give you an authentic anecdote. An agricultural entrepreneur named Mr Chan decided to start planting rubber trees on two acres of his hilly land in Mon State. He bought the seedlings himself and deployed his farm supervisor, farm worker plus two external daily wage workers to plant all the sprigs. He also get one of his managers from Yangon Office to monitor the work. It cost him more than 1.5 million Kyats last year. When it came to revisit the plantation this year, as fate would have it, more than 95% of the plants do not survive. It was surprising as rubber is the primary tree of value that is abundantly grown in this Mon State. So what’s the culprit then? It turned out that the plastic bags that were used to hold the seedlings were not removed when transplanted into the ground. How can this simple mistake be made! Either they do not know this simple act of having to remove the plastic cover (the UN- population) or all five of them do not want to bother doing their jobs properly. The end result has been the same!

While a Thai entrepreneur in similar situation was paying their staff extra bonuses as most of the seedlings he planted last year blossomed into baby trees this year, this entrepreneur from Myanmar is having to fork out another 2 million Kyats to redo the same thing of last year, wasting previous time and resources. How would the latter possibly increase the wages of his staff! Who is to blame here? Probably the government please!

Slayers of ‘Conan the Destroyer’

Conan the Destroyer would have cried if he encountered damage done to the country by its own Myanmar people. They would made him so small in his feats. They destroyed Myanmar businesses, Myanmar brands, leaders, personalities and success stories.

Probably the best beer in South East Asia, Myanmar Beer, was targeted first. Until now, a lot of F&B establishments who are anti government, are not having the national beer on their menus. They also tried to destroy Mytel, including the assassination of its CFO. The only online platform who could compete with Alibaba in Myanmar, rgo47, was also left in ruins due to their cyber terrorism. Myanmar largest bank KBZ was bombed many times, due to its unwillingness to side with the terrorists. And if someone ever ask why Myanmar do not have large corporate brands like neighbouring Thailand, they would answer that it is the government fault.

In the meantime, the terrorist keeps on bombing the highways, blowing up the rail tracks, drop bombing the schools, hospitals and bridges, blasting the transmission towers, burning the transformers, shooting randomly at express buses and extorting money from travellers through intimidation. And it is the government fault that Myanmar have lousy logistic and appalling power infrastructure too.

The speciality of just asking for money

Myanmar people, including some in position of power, are good at doing nothing effective but extracting from budgets or not using the brain and just asking for money.

Let me just give you one final example. One so called accountant of a real company keeps on asking for an increasing amount of money for the diesel fuel. The amount began to go up to twice the expense of the previous weeks. The boss who was overseas tell her that there must be something wrong with the generator to be costing that much in fuel. The accountant gave the flimsy excuse that there are longer times without power supply during the week, hence the bills mounted. Eventually when the boss returned and directed her to check the generator, it turned out that the fuel pipe was leaking inside the machine. Any extra effort other than just giving excuses is unfamiliar to most staff. The only thing the accountant is proficient in is asking for money from the boss and distributing that money. A very competent professional indeed.

A government agency tasked with bringing up one of the Myanmar sector has a lot of paid local experts. The Chairman rather than making the best use of them, to effectively develop the sector, is only interested in attending the national events, travelling to and fro Nay Pyi Taw, extracting the agency budget and doing the the least possible every month. No strategy, no tactics, just grab all the power, get all the benefits, ask for all the welfare and awards from government solely for himself. This is not fiction!

How can Myanmar develop with these types of attitudes and capabilities in both private and public sectors? Well may be it is also the fault of the government.

Detractors may argue these cases may not be representative of the population, but I beg to differ. Whatever the reality might be, we can all agree that it is always easy to find an excuse and blame the government. What we all need to is to put in some elbow’s grease to effectively get the job done through putting in an extra effort for the sake of future generations. Above and beyond the call of duty perhaps!

An Interview with Manish Gupta, Chief Financial Officer of Aureum Palace Hotels & Resorts

By
zhm
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Aureum Palace Hotels & Resorts was founded in 2004, quickly becoming one of Myanmar’s premier luxury hotel chains. Known for their opulent architecture, lush surroundings, and exceptional service, Aureum hotels blend local cultural aesthetics with modern amenities to provide a unique experience for travelers. Each property is strategically located in Myanmar’s most scenic and culturally significant areas, offering guests an immersive experience in the country’s heritage.

The Complaint of the Day

By
Tim M Htut
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For everyone residents of major cities and towns, the complaint of the day has been increasingly worse supply of electrical power to their houses and businesses. Especially during the last week of April, inhabitants of Yangon have to put up with less than two hours of supply without interruption. People are getting fed up with this issue and some are coming out with creative ways to keep themselves cool in the midst of the summer. A few youngsters whose houses has no power or air conditioner has resorted to riding air conditioned buses round trip the whole day and conduct what they need to do while being on an air con bus. A lot ended up wondering why the government cannot resolve this simple electricity supply issue. Many are frustrated that countries that are a lot less well to do than Myanmar can have 24 hour electricity supply.

The government has highlighted two causes; the terrorist attacks on electrical infrastructure and lower water levels in the dams used for hydro power generation. It stated only 50% of the full capacity can be supplied at present. Out of that total generated, 46% goes to Yangon region, 16% to Mandalay and 38% to the rest of the country.

In terms of power sources, the possible supply total remain at 7,184 MW, comprising of the followings:

Hydro             29 Plants       3,228 MW

Gas                 27                    3,638

Coal                  2                       138

Solar                 6                       180

Even though the numbers at full capacity exceed the yearly demand of ~5,500 MW, at current 50% capacity, the supply remains well below demand hence exacerbating the already worsening situation of fuel and electric power shortage across the nation.

Braving the 48C Heat to Discover the First Kingdom of Burma

By
Nelson Tim
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As recent as the first week of April 2024, there was a social media post relating to the hottest cities in the world. Myanmar has the honour of occupying six out of the total 15 positions as reported by El Dorado weather. One of these towns included Nyaung Oo, where the ancient city of Bagan is located. The temperature was 48C+. Right in the middle of summer, or the hot season as it is known locally, the strong scorching winds blew, carrying the insufferable heat wave bearing down on anyone brave enough to venture out around high noon.

After looking in on Ngapali and Inlay, we decided to journey up north to the capital of our first Kingdom, the #1 tourist attraction in Myanmar. Albeit being in the middle of summer, we decided to take advantage of the water festival (Thingyan) break and headed to Bagan.

This time, lacking time pressure due to unnecessarily long holidays, we did a road trip. There is the possibility of driving straight to Bagan from Yangon, but unless you are an energetic young person and your vehicle is equally youthful, it is definitely NOT recommended. It would take more than 10 hours, if you drive within speed limits. Even if you are up to the challenge, your automobile may not hold out against the weather. Hence we decided to take an overnight break in Nay Pyi Taw.

Here we come

From Nay Pyi Taw, its about four and half hours drive to Nyaung Oo, the town within which the old Bagan resides. After leaving the expressway at Myeik Tee Lar exit, we headed towards Bagan. Our initial fears of encountering PDF terrorists have been proved to be unfounded. The road was reasonably busy.  A couple of barbicans en route, with soldiers performing rudimentary inspection on vehicles. Halfway along that road you would pass by the sprawling town of Kyauk Pa Down. The town is famous of many of the local wares, including the famous potato crisps brand ‘Mary Cho’. The township even got an international school, believe it or not!

After that borough, we pass by many speciality restaurants, reasonably large, selling the speciality foods and regional cuisines, including locally produced alcohol made from fruits of the localised palm trees (palm coconuts or dates, perhaps). We strongly suggest you stop by to try out the stuff you have not tried during your lifetime. We did and we did not suffer any side effects, hangovers or stomach upsets.

The Accommodation

As with our usual outings, we decided to stay at Aureum Palace. We have been there two or three times prior during our visits to Bagan in the past decade. The hotel was at full occupancy during the Water Festival. Other than the weather, the place is at par with other Aureums in Inle, Ngapali or Putao. Service levels are outstanding too, although I would rate Ngapali as the best among the foursome.

Even before talking about the awes of Bagan, you would be amazed as soon as you entered the reception hall at the Aureum Bagan; more than twenty large teak columns supported the large reception foyer.  At least the trees used would have been 30 years old at least. May be in twenty years time, the atrium itself would have become a wonder of Bagan. Large flat planks of hardwood bridged over the koi pond, welcomes you into that concourse while signalling at the same time that the hotel was built without any expense spared.

The villas are also displayed a lavishly constructed style. Some of us who like to stay indoors and read might find the illumination in the chamber sadly below par.

Not forgetting the good things too; dinner by the pool, immediate BBQ upon order, while being entertained by a local band. You always have the welcoming option to go up stage and express your singing talent too.

Bagan

Every time I visited the Great Wall of Beijing, I cannot help but admire the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. How farsighted he was to ensure that future Chinese generations continue to prosper, through collection of $36 (including entrance fees, cable car and toboggan) from every visitors near or far. A similar story can be told of the Khmer King Suryavarman II of Cambodia. His foresight ensures that the current generation continue to collect $37 from every foreign visitor to Angkor Wat. King Anawyahtar of Myanmar surely falls into the same category too. The entrance fees may be small at $10, but he did look out for future generations.

For our friends from abroad, the four top pagodas and their respective fame in Bagan include

Swe See Gone – for hegemony.

Da Ma Yan Gyi – for mass (being big)

Thut Bay Nude – for height

Ananda – for detailed architecture.

Of course, there are other similarly impressive structures in the old Bagan, but if you are short on time or cannot stand the heat, these four are the encapsulation of Bagan history.

Mount Popa

If you come to Bagan, at least spare a day to visit Mount Popa, an hour drive from there, to climb up 3,000 ft high mountain cliff, have a great view of surrounding landscapes while learning about the 37 Nats, the heavenly beings who are so entertained into Myanmar culture. These heavenly beings occupying the realms between the heaven and the earth. Even for the locals, the knowledge of Nats is just elementary. For foreigners it is a topic totally alien, let alone the details of the 37 high powered spirits in esse.

The only disappointment of going to Mount Popa would be because of the fact that you have chosen the shorter route, which shaves off 20 minutes compared to the longer one. Many many years ago, some of the areas around Popa are lepers colonies. Now leprosy is close to non-existent here. Yet along the short route from Bagan to Popa, the beggars, young and old appear at the roadside in unison for more than 10 miles of the roadway. Very unpleasant perhaps, helping me remember movie, ‘Village of the Damned’. The government of the Mandalay division should seriously do something about it as this reflects poorly on the country and compromises the feeling of safety for all travellers.

When to Visit

If you really want to undergo the feeling of being in a Philip Air Fryer, April is the month of choice. Else, Bagan is a suitable place to visit any time from June till February. Rainy season does not affect Bagan much as it is in the middle of Myanmar region, where rainfall is miniscule. So what are you waiting for? At least Bagan is waiting for you now!

Revenge of the States

By
zhm
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Just like in Star Wars Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith, where Anakin Skywalker has turned to the dark side, US lawmakers have moved forward to turn freedom of expression to the dark side with the passing of legislation to ban the hugely popular social media platform TikTok.

On March 13, the US House of Representatives (Lower House) passed a bill banning app stores and internet service providers from distributing ‘foreign, adversary, controlled’ applications. The generics may sound vague, but the target is clearly Tiktok, the platform on which 170 million Americans spend an average of 56 minutes per day. The demographics of the user group are predominantly youngsters, aged below 35, the future generation.

In a least-developed country like Myanmar, Tiktok is ruled by young and not-so-young girls showing off their individual assets, dancing and bouncing the same style, through gyrating their hips, backsides and oranges, with the fat hope of becoming celebrities of some kind, where Tiktok will eventually pay them for doing such nonsense. They might be better off buying the Aung Bar Lay lottery. The probability of getting some returns is far greater in the latter.

But the issue in the US is not only about such girls or boys as celeb wannabes but also about the rise of TikTok news. Based on yearly Gallop polls conducted since 2016, the level of trust in mass media and 24-hour reporting of news, such as CNN, has been the lowest this year. The viewership has turned to news on social media, including TikTok. Although normal popular tiktokers are less wary, the most popular TikTok newscaster, News Daddy, has more than 10.3 million followers, a number far greater than the NY Times, Washington Post and Daily Mail of the UK combined. Hence, the dangers of spreading fake news to more than half of the US population if algorithms can be somehow manipulated.

Who would have wanted to manipulate algorithms in such a way? Undeniably, Facebook has become world #1 in the promotion of fake news, taking down factual content and, at the same time, not paying taxes to the country where they derived their ad revenues. Just think of what’s happened in Myanmar in the past three years! Scared of a ‘what-if’ scenario of the same thing happening in the USA, perpetuated by Tiktok through targeted algorithms, the US government decided to walk the talk by advancing the idea of the platform being associated with the Chinese government.

Despite evidence to the contrary and Tiktok denying any Chinese government interference, the LA- and Singapore-based global video sharing platform has been subpoenaed to Congress too. Tiktok is a subsidiary of ByteDance Group, headquartered in Beijing and incorporated in the tax heaven of Cayman Island. Tiktok has tried defensive maneuvers, including asking its members to lobby congressmen, highlighting that its shareholders include US venture capital and hedge funds and getting Oracle to safeguard US-specific data (in the hope of averting spying allegations). All efforts went into deaf ears as politicians tried to score points in the election year and possibly take revenge on the United States based on the past treatment of US digital giants operating in China. Take note: all Google services and Facebook are still banned in China.

Fears of Tiktok behaving like Facebook are overblown. There is no evidence of spying. Nor was there political intrusion akin to fake news on Facebook. Other than bias over Gaza coverage, there is no evidence to corroborate that Tiktok algorithms are in line with Beijing. May be the youth demographics of Tiktok users simply like to stay more on the side of ‘from the river to the sea’, in tune with Beijing’s purported policy. Tiktok did admit to the removal of Tiananmen-related videos in the past, probably not to anger Beijing.

The lawmakers passed the bill 352 to 65. The so-called Foreign Aid Bill proceeded to the Senate (Upper House) and passed too. After President Joe Biden signed the bill in April, this law is moving like a speedy Gonzales, giving Tiktok little time for Plan B. After the President signed the bill, Tiktok had to shut down US operations within nine months. It either has to become a US-owned entity or a public company and cut ties with Beijing, but the Chinese government prefers neither.

Tiktok shareholders would be at the top of the losers list as a direct consequence of this revenge of the States. Western consumers lose out too, depriving them of alternative platform choices. They may also miss out on the innovations from the Far East, which evolved through competition with US digital behemoths. The top beneficiary seems to be Facebook, whose video sharing service ‘Reels’ competes directly with Tiktok. Insta, Youtube, X, and Snapchat are also expected to gain at Tiktok’s expense, in that order.

It is impractical just to carve off US operations of Tiktok and sell separately, even if buyers like Amazon might be keen to snap up the Tiktok shop, which is gaining huge popularity as an alternative e-commerce route. Listing Tiktok as a separate entity might be a possibility, yet a company worth trillions of dollars in valuation might not be an easy float, facing current objections from Beijing.

Whatever the future lies, Tiktok will forever be written in the annals of civilization, and its case of having to shut down in the US will become a case study in freedom of expression vs. silencing competition in the disguise of being an armlet of a so-called  foreign enemy.

An Inquiry on Tax

By
zhm
-
Red capital letters sitting on coins stacks write Tax before defocused background. Horizontal composition with copy space. Great use for tax reduction concepts.

We have been seeing more than our share of deaths and destruction within this beautiful country of ours, so lets spare a little time to lighten up the mood by dwelling onto the tax system and some of its stats. Spoiler alert: you be surprised!

Typical five features of a good tax system include fairness, adequacy, simplicity, transparency and administrative ease. Let’s bring all these down to earth in Myanmar. MI has spoken to IRD (Inland Revenue Department) to get ourselves updated on current issues of the day.

The good features are all here?

Fairness refers to the tax system treating all tax payers equally and consistently. People and businesses would pay their fair share of tax and income should be subject to tax only once. Yet fairness as defined by whom? Some businesses and individuals in states and regions outside of central government control end up paying some sort of protection money to EAO, rebels or NNCP terrorist groups. Some restaurants in major towns and cities are still evading the payment of 5% commercial tax, by either refusing to issue receipts or asking patrons to fort out extra for the shop having to stick stamps onto receipts.

Among the three siblings of regressive, proportion and progressive taxes, most of Myanmar taxes are not progressive in nature yet, resulting from inability to accurately assess ones income or wealth.

Tax collections are not adequate either at present. We are running budget deficits for nine out of the past fifteen years. The country is grossly short on infrastructure to supply basic services.

Simplicity is one area that Myanmar tax system can be proud of. This could be as a result of lack of advancement in the economy and the financial system. E.g., most of the taxes on transactions such as properties or cars, are simply based on the value of the property and applying a fixed percentage of tax. The value of the property is also only officially determined for tax purposes. There is also no centralised transaction register either. Fat hope for those wanting to do a valuation report of any property here.

Transparency refers to tax payers and citizens ability to learn of how the money collected from them was distributed. Tax payers being clear on exemptions, deductions, tax credits, etc. Since 2021, the transparency has somewhat done down, based on disclosure of spending and allocations by the central government. At the ground level, we also need transparency as lack of it encourages corruption across all civil services. A good example would be the change of ownership titles for farmland. Without transparency and publicity thereof on fees structure, citizens ended up having to cough up whatever amount demanded by civil servants, just for the latter to do the job they get paid for by the government.

The last of the lot, the administrative ease, refers to both the collectors and tax payers. The system itself cannot be cumbersome or expensive. At present, due to different registration requirements of various government departments, citizens, business owners and companies are given a run around having to register at different places, do to different departments, etc. There is also the issue of frequent change of tax collectors and assessors, requiring the tax payers to restart the whole process from the beginning.

Here comes interesting stats

In terms of evasion of commercial tax, the government has taken action at least 884 times in the last financial year. Fines have been imposed depending on the frequency of offence, totally 980 million Kyats. Yet, it still represented only 0.03% of the total commercial tax collections of the year.

Out of 283 branches of IRD across the country, only 4% falls under SAS (Self Assessment System). Yet collection wise, offices under SAS collected 80% of the taxes. The moral of the story seems to be to trust the tax payer instead of the tax collectors. Most countries have also done away with OAS (Officer Assessment System) too.

There are many hotlines, branches and emails to ask for details on the taxes and clarify thing, yet, disagreement of the assessment can only be via a written correspondence to the Director General of IRD.

The surprising finding on our inquiries was the fact that there has not been any reduction in tax revenues collected after 2021. Yes, there was reduction during Covid period, but not thereafter. Saved by the SAS perhaps.

Legal systems, integration issues and high level push is lacking to ensure that Myanmar has one unique id number for every individuals and entities that could be used for ALL government departments. This centralised registration system is still not in place yet.

Last but not least, the issue of Facebook getting all ad revenues out of Myanmar based companies, targeting Myanmar consumers and not paying any income tax here, is unlikely to be addressed at any time soon. Meanwhile Myanmar continues to lose out on its share of tax revenues.

Silence of the Pigs

By
Charlie Greene
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Internet can be a magical place, but it can also be the one where things are always not what they seem. According to E-Commerce Association of Myanmar, many in the country has fallen victims to Facebook sponsored posts (advertisements) scams, where the sellers from border towns such as Myawaddy collected advance payments for (non-existence) goods, defrauding hundreds of buyers of their hard earned cash. Getting an item quite different from what is advertised is one thing, but getting scam of all your cash is hard to take and victims are caught between reporting to an establishment whose law and orders do not instil fear and an embarrassment of being a first-class example of a village idiot.

Unfortunately not every mistake is so benign and it is not news that there are scammers on the internet but you may have noticed that one scam in particular is currently everywhere globally.

A common way that it starts is with a weird text from a number that you do not recognise, e.g., Cindy… can we move lunch to five, when you are certainly not Cindy; or Rick, what time is our flight when you are not Rick and you definitely don’t have a flight booked; or hello is this the manager Joey from the flower shop; or is this Dr John, I’m Emily and is my horse recovering well! Most people would ignore messages like those but there are some kind souls who would respond right back and get sucked into a conversation and eventually, through a process popularly known as Pig Butchering, they can end up losing a lot of money.

It’s a scam with a striking name that newscasters cannot seem to get over. It’s called a Pig Butchering scam and it might sound like a gruesome name but that’s because the amount of money victims are losing is extremely large and painful. First, you feed the pig till it grow bigger and bigger before you finally kill the animal for pork and bones. It is exactly what it sounds like but the name makes a little more sense once you understand how the scam actually works in the world of cyber and counterterrorism threats.

In 2021, special agents from US covering internet scams started seeing this new scam called Pig Butchering. It just refers to raising little piglets fattening them up and butchering them later. Scammers are fattening up their victim with illusions of grandeur of wealth or love before bleeding them really dry. That is particularly vicious because imagine being a victim of this scam turning on the news and suddenly learning that the small handful people in his or her situation are the pigs. It might actually an honour to be compared to a pig and if you are thinking well, this seems like the kind of scam that’s been around for decades. That is only partially true but the way this one works is fairly
new and in the short time that it’s been around, it’s been massively successful.

Just this year it was at the centre of a huge local news story in Kansas, USA, where it brought down a financial institution. Kansas State Bank Commissioner talked about the massive cryptocurrency scam at the Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkart; a cryptocurrency scheme that the FBI now referred to as Pig Butchering. Commissioner said the victim was Shan Hanes, the bank’s CEO. He is now facing charges of embezzling nearly $50 million, a loss that caused the bank to fail last August.

According to prosecutors, CEO got Pig Butchered. He sent his scammer the majority of bank’s holdings and the bank went under. It is extremely alarming for several reasons; among them is how banks work, because there should be at least one control or monitoring step between the awareness that the CEO gets tricked and whoops, the bank’s empty.

It’s estimated that as of 2022 this scam was taking people for a ride, more than $3 billion a year in the US alone and that’s almost certainly a massive undercount as it only includes people who reported their losses to the FBI. Global figures could be many times that amount.

Why it is easier to fall for than you might think?

Let’s start with where this merciless online scam all began. To do that, unfortunately, we do need to go back to the place that no one wants to go – the beginning of Covid. Pig
Butchering took off basically at the start of Covid because many of us were isolated and lonely, desperately looking for human contact online. This made us ripe targets. At the same time, organised crime groups from China running casinos in Southeast Asia, were in crisis as thanks to the pandemic, gamblers were not showing up. So these crime bosses turned those casinos into bases for online scam operations and from then on their managers and second fiddler scammers started identifying people and prayed on their vulnerabilities.

Let us walk through the basic steps. The first is to make contact and lure you (the target) in. In one real life example, this woman victim explain how her scammer who called himself Jimmy contacted her at a moment when she was dealing with cancer, the pandemic and the end of her marriage. First communication came as a very innocent message. She said wrong number but scammer came back saying she looked Chinese and asking if she was Chinese. She said yes. He said he had moved here just before Covid and
then Covid hit and so he was not able to go home and he was a lonely man in need of comfort. Jimmy would message her everyday. She remembered receiving these Emojis
with hearts. It was quite flattering for a middle-aged woman to meet a young man who finds her attractive. Of course that’s flattering because scammers are very good at telling their targets what they want to hear most.

One way of making contact is through those wrong number text but experts estimate that they only make up about a quarter of the initial contacts for this scam. The rest can come through sites like LinkedIn, dating apps, Instagram or Facebook places specifically designed for you to meet people that you do not know either for love a hookup. Scammers often research their target using social media where there is a lot of information about people so they can pretend to have something in common.

Another woman victim who met someone on a dating app only to discover that they shared an unexpected connection. He started asking questions about my family and my past experiences. It was a connection that felt even stronger when the scammer told her he came from the same town in China from where she was adopted. They kind of bonded
over that. That story started with him asking her questions about her life and ends with her giving him all of her money but regardless of how they start sooner or later we move on to step two turning the conversation toward money.

But even then there’s a smart twist because you will not be suddenly asked to wire money to a Nigerian prince with an obviously fake email or a lottery winning email from microsoft
or google. These are so history. In Pig Butchering, there is nodirect quest for money at all. Instead an opportunity gets presented to you. Another victim explains the moment when a guy that he met on a dating site started to reel him in. He spent at least a month, daily talking the victim in in cultivating the friendship. Initially the only talk about money was how much his new online (fictional) friend had made in crypto. After all the victim, like most of us, thought he knew how to protect himself from scams ‘you can invest with me and I’ll make you all this money’ and hence, he will not be giving out any money at all. That’s when he started saying the big ‘NO’ – you don’t give it to me, you establish your own account and I’ll guide you. That’s the cleverer hook here; you’re not sending the scammer money; they’re helping you set up and control your own account and everything seems more legitimate especially when an app is involved.

When is the last time you took a Grab taxi and think – oh I am getting into a nondescript car with someone I’ve never met. I would never do that. But wait, if I can do it from my phone, well in that case, here’s my address and particulars. Now you know where I live and that I won’t be home for the evening. We are programmed to believe that everything’s safe where there’s an app involved and the fact the investment is often in crypto can be persuasive for multiple reasons. First, who really knows how crypto works. But people have made money on crypto so it’s not unreasonable to think you might meet one of them and they could give you some tips. On top of that, you might not be super familiar with how a trading platform operates or even what one looks like.

Scammers have already created incredibly plausible looking platforms which seems to have all the details and functionality of a real one and everyone could be fooled by that. Also some scammers use legitimate apps that allow anyone to build a trading exchange. The problem is there are tools that scammers can use to simulate fake results on those apps while taking your real money.

This gave one victim false confidence in Metatrader – it looks just like any kind of normal trading interface that one would use that’s available in the Google Play Store. It’s also available in the Apple AppStore. It’s an app that has a lot of good ratings and that was one of the things that made him think that this whole operation was legitimate.

You believed that your investment was making money if you’re trading on a legitimate trading interface. You see the profits and losses over time. This is exactly what you saw if your friend told you to download an app and you saw it in the App Store with good reviews, you might assume everything on it was legitimate even before you saw Metatrader logo. Some scammers even set up additional features like two Factor authentication or customer service hotlines.

One woman victim did try her best to do due diligence on the site that she was recommended by the scammer and came away convinced that it was real. There was a legal secretary involved in another state vouching association with a law firm where she was sending her money to. She was real, the victim could verify her so it was very complex and well rehearsed operation. She spoke with a legal secretary and a law firm before sending money and that is more vetting than any of us intelligent people could have done.

At this point of the process things might look pretty good for the people
getting scammed. You’ve sent a bit of money to a legitimate looking site through an account that you control and your new friend’s trading tips seem to be working so
maybe you send a little bit more and pretty soon you might have a fair amount of money tied up on this trading platform. But when you eventually go to withdraw it, that is where we hit the final step of this process.

Remember that woman mentioned earlier whose online friend claimed that he was from the same town where she was born. She even had convinced her father to invest as well. They had seemingly made a bunch of money and then this happened. By December of last year, their accounts showed a combined balance of $1.2 million. That’s when she decided it was time to cash out that’s when the site told her before she could withdraw her money she’d have to pay a hefty tax bill of rough $380,000, That’s when she eventually realised something’s not right, it wasn’t real cryptocurrency investments after all and all her and her father’s funds had gone into the scammers pockets – all in all $390,000 stolen. The tax bill was just the ultimate attempt to squeeze them dry one last time!

This isn’t the only brutal story. One woman lost $350,000, another guy lost $300,000 and the first woman victim who fell for Jimmy sent him two and a half million, as she was dealing with terminal cancer herself. It is traumatic and it is humiliating and it took extreme courage for those people to come forward.

That is partly why experts think the $3 billion per annum figure that they have estimated is way too low because most people who’ve been scammed like them simply do not report their losses out of embarrassment. At this point you have every right to be furious with the people on the other end of all of these messages. You want to see them taken down at the very least.

Who’s behind it?

Reasonable people could also fathom that the persons on the other end of that phone (the scammers) might not be the one you should be mad at, because these post-Covid scams were being done in former casinos of South East Asia by organised crime syndicates. It turned out they are not great bosses after all, as one Indian man named Rakesh recalled. He said he was forced to work for more than 11 months without pay for a Chinese criminal gang. Rakesh said he first flew to Thailand for what he thought was an IT job. Instead he says he was tricked into crossing the border to Myanmar, where a Chinese gangster told him to work or else. He threatened to kill him. The job required Rakesh to spend 16 hours a day on social media with a fake profile targeting Americans. It would be a complete torture to be forced to spend 16 hours a day on social media unless you love it or because you are 15 years old and the algorithm has addicted you to it. A lot of these organisations are using people who’ve been human trafficked after being lured to these compounds of organised crime under false pretences. People like Rakesh are actually the victims of a scam themselves basically – they might see job ads for skilled positions as translators or IT specialist in another country. They then go through a whole application process with some going through up to four seemingly legitimate online interviews and fly to their new job, at which point they suddenly learn their new bosses have their travel and other documents confiscated and they now cannot leave.

Back in 2022 Rakesh estimated that tens of thousands of people had been tricked in this way and a more recent UN report estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have been forcibly engaged in this scheme. UN also said most victims are confined to the scam compounds and their screens are always monitored by the members of the organised crime groups. Once they are inside, they have been provided with fake profiles to try and hook people in.

Rakesh found himself acting out as a Russian girl all day every day, using the fake profile of a beautiful Russian girl. He said he needed to scam the people posing as a Salt Lake City based investor named Clara Simonov. Rakesh then flirted online with potential targets. 70 to 80% fall for fake love.

Even after scamming as many people as he possibly can, Rakesh’s boss would not let him leave the job.

The whole operation is highly organised and set up to get around the usual ways that you might detect a scam. For instance some organisations generate their own photos for the profile so that they cannot be reverse image searched via google. Employees are given detailed manuals that guide them through every step of the scam process.

They were told to target people who looked wealthy and successful. One advises even on daily activities for scammers – on the first day talk about things like your name age, occupation and hobbies then the next day, talk about your emotional experience with a message divided into two paragraphs and then on the third day, talk about your entrepreneurial experience, etc. They’re even given tips on how to break down people’s defences. Several of these manuals carefully explain how to build trust and exploit weaknesses in their so-called clients, e.g., be funny, make clients fall in love with you so deeply that they forget everything. The chilling thing is if you’re funny enough, you can make people forget a lot of things whether it’s common sense internet safeguards, lessons from previous relationships or that they’ve been accidentally learning about financial fraud and human trafficking for the last twenty minutes. And if you thinking what why don’t authorities just shut these compounds down, sometimes they themselves are in on it.

One Chinese man named Lee who was trafficked to a scam centre in Cambodia explained what happened when he did the obvious thing on his second day in captivity. When He emailed the Chinese Embassy he was advised to call the civil police but the police never came. The property management came instead. They apparently knew that he had called the police. The managers then sold him to another scamming company because he had called the police. The managers of the scam centre said they had to take care of the police with at least $4,000 and I had to pay for that too. Hence the sale!

The authorities were not going to help him, which actually makes sense when you learn that according to UN estimates Pig Butchering scams in Cambodia brings in an amount equivalent to half the country’s GDP which is worrisome because if something generates that much money for a country, you do not shut it down. You spin it off and pray the magic works a second time. The conditions in these compounds can be brutal. That trafficked man took photos of abuse of how some coworkers had been beaten. Even some Facebook videos in Myanmar showed workers being chained to beds at night and being tasered with electric rods when they failed to meet targets or misbehave the slightest.

Lee, who managed to get out of the scam centre now, works to free others. The stories of what he’s seen are warning for others and hard to watch such as a man get beaten up very badly he had injuries all over his body. Lee contends it was this man who was reportedly found hanging just hours thereafter. His phone is full of messages from Chinese citizens desperate to be set free from shackles of scam companies. There were also videos of abuses Lee said he received directly from victims inside the scam industry or found them posted in Social Media Group chats. To say they are shocking and absolutely horrifying would be complete understatement.

And what we can do to protect ourselves and our loved ones from getting scammed in the future?

When you know all of this, it starts to change who exactly you are mad because suddenly the individuals on the other end of the phone do not seem to be having fun sending out messages to scam you. From now on whenever you get a sexy text from a new stranger, good luck not thinking is this a man who was just beaten in a border work camp in autonomous and EAO controlled regions in Myanmar.

We cannot say that every scammer is someone who was kidnapped, tortured and forced to swindle but even if not everyone who is doing this is trapped or coerced, the very fact that many fall into this category, is still a huge problem. What we can do here when it comes to those imprisoned in these compounds is going to take collaboration between international law enforcement agencies. So, unless you are the head of Interpol there’s not much you personally can do now in wherever country you are in.

Platforms like Facebook should be doing way more to prevent the creation of fake accounts that target people because it’s happening on their watch. Scammers are using
sponsored posts. Perhaps the most effective way to stop this from happening is to make it less lucrative by having fewer people fall for it. Awareness of this scam is key. This is one of those rare cases where raising awareness is in itself genuinely useful. Because hopefully you’ve read here in MI today, this could happen to someone you know. This hasn’t just sucked in old people or those who aren’t tech savvy. It managed to reel in a bank CEO in the first world country of USA. Everyone has an image of the type of person who susceptible to getting scammed in their heads but unless that image is in a mirror standing right in front of you, you might be wrong.

Thus, as a general rule whenever a stranger online says either I love you or recommends crypto within a month of talking to you, worry honestly even if they do not turn out to be scammers. Those are pretty good red flags to be looking for. It’s worth telling your friends and family about Pig Butchering too. If you know someone who’s been scammed like this, try to be kind. It is just human to want companionship and it’s actually a nice quality to be trusting of people. It sucks that the internet which should be a way to alleviate loneliness can be turned into a tool to exploit it. Maybe if we all look out for one another, we can ensure that the worst mistake anyone ever makes on the Internet might just be inadvertently buying an excellent Christmas tree for something totally different upon arrival. I am quite sure you have all experienced that in life, just like myself.

A Change We are All Hoping For?

By
Nelson Tim
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Government is preparing for February 01. January 31st is the last day of the term for emergency powers for SAC and the market has been awash with news that an interim government would be the possible new structure as well as the split between military and civilian administration.

The push came as a result of below par performances in both military and governance endeavours by SAC. Even the ardent supporters of myanmar military are exasperated by incessant news of Tatmataw losing ground to rebel, EAO and terrorist forces in border areas, surrenders without fighting and lack of effective strategies to rid the country of such destructive forces. Worse of all, lack of regular communication from the very top to the general public makes it close to impossible for people to develop confidence in the military and is forcing people to read and sometimes rely upon fake news sources and agencies.

In preparing for the upcoming change, SAC is setting up a structure similar to the one Myanmar had during the time of president Thein Sein. A president or head of state, surrounded by powerful president office ministers. We used to have six president office ministers during that administration.

On January 8, SAC appointed three ministers to similar positions, as follows:

  • Ko Ko Hlaing to Ministry 1 at office of Chairman of SAC.
  • Aung Naing Oo to Ministry 2
  • Admiral Moe Aung to Ministry 4

The rest of the positions remain vacant at time of writing. With the shift of Navy Chief to office of Chairman, Myanmar Navy got a new Chief, promoting navy Chief of Staff Zwe Win Myint, to become the Rear Admiral of the Myanmar Navy.

Whether the SG Min Aung Hliang takes the military #1 or civilian head of state position is a matter for speculation, but what Myanmar needs now is a leader who is decisive, think long term, brave and development oriented on a global scale. Unfortunately, based on the past three years of performance, the top tier of leadership may not be up to the task, based on the existing composition of leaders.

With majority of first and second tiers of government leaders more focus on appeasing SG, doing the bare minimum, carrying favours with their superiors and hanging onto their seats of powers, it would be a while before Myanmar can get back to the growth rates it deserved similar to the years between 2012 – 2016. People are concerned that the person of choice by SG would be a tad too similar to him in terms of management style that it would not allow Myanmar to break out of this economic stagnation and infamous epitaph in Myanma Tatmataw.

We are already the poorest country in South East Asia since 2017. We missed so many boats to bring us across the boundary of continuous economic growth. Failings of democracy at its worst exposed, selecting bad and fraudulent leaders like Su Kyi, ending up in military dictatorship, etc. Socrates has been right all along: “Voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm.”

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