Under Trump's so-called "reciprocal" tariff regime, he claimed Malaysia has a 47% rate on the US, thus justifying their revenge of 24%.

So I looked into the granular data, and guess what?

Malaysia's actual effective tariff rate on the US is......

1.4%

🧵of how I found this

https://twitter.com/Thevesh/status/1908917450688942430

First step: Gather data on all the tariffs / import duties Malaysia currently imposes on the US under Perintah Duti Kastam 2022.

The best globally-applicable source for this is the World Integrated Trade Solution.

You can download the data I used here: wits.worldbank.org/tariff/trains/…

I dug into the White House's list of 1039 tariff-exempt items.

Here's the final result: Using the most granular trade data available for the past 1 year, 24.2% of Malaysia's exports to US would be tariff-free.

This means 75.8% of our exports to US (10.2% of exports overall) would get hit by the tariff.

🧵Thread explaining my derivation. First, quick description of data sources:

Source 1: Granular trade data from @StatsMalaysia, available from mymets.dosm.gov.my.

Source 2: List of exempt codes from the White House (page 15-19 here: whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…)

Apabila saya lihat survei drpd influencer terhebat spt @khairulaming, saya selalu sgt curious samada dia match dgn realiti ke tak.

Jadi, adakah KA punya survey balik raya tepat?

Short answer: Pretty damn ACCURATE.

🧵 Short thread explaining how I got my results.

https://twitter.com/khairulaming/status/1902649317971698023

First step: Last year during Raya, I ran a live traffic bot using the Google Maps API. This enabled me to gather quite a lot of data (at 20-minute frequency) on traffic across highways in Malaysia.

And of course, what I posted is only a subset of what I collected - I posted the stuff I was more confident with, while collecting more to study.

x.com/Thevesh/status…

A lot has been said about how much the 'rich' make in Malaysia.

But there has been almost no discussion of the other side of the coin - how much tax do the 'rich' pay?

Using only open data, here's the answer - and it will probably shock you.

In 2022, T15 paid ~80% of taxes. Upon seeing this, your reaction might be:

"Well, the rich make most of the income, so they should pay most of the tax."

Fair enough. However, I felt it was not right to only discuss the income of the rich, but not their tax contribution.

Hence this chart. These are the facts.

Saya faham masing2 marah bab pencen.

Walaupun perasaan itu valid, saya rasa korg patut tahu fakta dan datanya juga.

Berapa sebenarnya pencen menteri / MP?

Jawapannya: ~RM85 juta setahun, angka yg sgt2 kecil dalam big picture. Dalam 0.02% drpd bajet shj.

Mungkin anda tertanya2 - siapa sebenarnya yang menerima duit pencen yg byk tu?

Inilah jawapannya - dalam buku bajet (merujuk T.14), memang setiap kategori penerima diperincikan secara telus.

How has the ethnic composition of Semenanjung Malaysia changed since Merdeka (1957)?

Answer:
• The Malay/Bumi % has steadily risen and is now at an all-time HIGH.
• The Chinese/Indian % has steadily fallen and is now at an all-time LOW.

🧵A sobering thread

#myopendata

https://twitter.com/Thevesh/status/1749022339780817289

I won't touch on the history behind the large changes in Malaya's ethnic composition observed in the early 1900s (cerita panjang, and most know anyway).

Suffice it to say: The long-term trend leading to today only really kicked in after WW2.

So the question is - why?

(1/n) I am very frustrated seeing the QTs to this.

I want PADU to succeed. It's something very vital for gov.

So here is a nuanced view:

1) Education and employment details outdated, no problem. These are good to crowdsource.

2) Marriage details incorrect, big problem.

https://twitter.com/imokman/status/1742799084195557771

(2/n) Why is it a big problem? Because we were told that PADU integrates 100s of government databases.

Surely JPN marriage database (for non-Muslims) is one of them.

This is NOT something people should have to edit!!

Comment: I disagree with using win % to compare parties within a coalition (DAP vs PKR vs BN).

Why?

Because their seats are different!

47 kerusi DAP lawan, kalau letak PKR masih menang hampir semua kot.

59 kerusi PKR lawan, kalau letak DAP, mungkin prestasi akan lebih teruk.

https://twitter.com/ibrahimsaninet/status/1690555810462793728

Similarly, apabila kita kata UMNO corot hanya menang 19/108, kena Ingat, byk yg mereka tanding dekat Kelantan, Terengganu dan Kedah.

Letak siapa pun daripada PH+BN di sana, result masih sama.

There are other ways to show UMNO poor performance. Win % is not the best indicator.

In GE14
- Where was voter turnout highest?
- Where was undi rosak highest?
- Which seats were won with the biggest majority?

Here are some maps summarising the open data from @sprgovmy!

And that's not all.... In general, your vote matters a LOT more than you think.

In more than 60% of seats, the number of people who didn't vote was MORE than the winning majority.

Implication: Those who didn't vote *could* have swung the result.