*Omicron in Malaysia - What to Expect?* (a🧵)

When would cases peak and start turning? We don't know, and have not found anything publicly.

So we... erm, approximated what we think is possible using what we know happened in other countries.

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@hewcab We are definitely wrong, so real experts out there - tell us how wrong.

TL;DR:
- new cases peaking at 1st week of March, possibly above 60k cases/day
- could be as high as above 160k, by mid-March
- cases normalise in Apr-May.

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There are many good reasons to take out from your retirement savings - e.g., emergency healthcare, education. But there are also many bad ones.

You need to be aware of what you are giving up when you reduce your savings today. (2 of 6)

Let me give you a stylised simulation.

Suppose you have 30 years to retirement and you have 100k in savings today.

Assume a real return (i.e., adjusted for inflation) of 4% per year.

In 30 years, that 100k would have turned into 324k in today's money.

1. So I want to talk about men and women in the Malaysian economy, on some trends that I think more people should know about. Some of them might surprise you. 2. Malaysia is one of the more gender unequal countries in the world, often ending at the bottom of global rankings on gender equality. For eg, the latest WEF gender gap report put us at 101 out of 149 countries (reports.weforum.org/global-gender-…).

On GST: I realised many are claiming that GST is efficient, in Parliament, newspaper, social media etc.

I think most are referring to collection efficiency, not economic efficiency.

I don't think many understand what it means when economists label a tax as efficient. /1 The problem is economics of course - we appropriated the word efficiency and used it to mean something rather different. This is done quite often...

Anyway, a tax is considered more efficient if it destroys less economic activity than an alternative tax. /2