Dumb and Dumber

You can bail out banks by printing money, but you can't bail out a generation of dumb people by printing diplomas... Dean Kamen, the guy who is responsible for Segway said that. This, coming from a guy who never earned a college diploma.

Bank Negara lost 20 billion ringgit in 1994 from foreign exchange losses. It was the biggest ever loss by a central bank anywhere then. Before that there was the BMF scandal in Hong Kong. Bank Bumi lost 2 billion ringgit, considered the largest banking failure during its time. See, our obsession is not just with the tallest building, etc... it's also with biggest 'bungles' as well. Bank Bumi went on to be bailed out 2 more times after the BMF scandal.

The recent subprime crisis has also seen institutions being bailed out by the gahmens... to protect the public's interests, so they say. In the first place, these institutions abuse the trust of the people in them... then when they bungle up... the people's money is used to bail them out. It's a foolproof plan, a license to abuse the system and the best joke is, they get bailed out. Dumb we are! This lack of accountability for each of these scandals is an audacious act. Most of the big fish got away, leaving the small people to pick up the pieces.

The next half of Kamen's words of wisdom... a generation of dumb people by printing diplomas. It feels like we're equally dumb here too. Tens of thousands of graduates are unemployable with the bulk of them coming from UiTM and the remainder from our other local universities. Printing diplomas for a generation of seemingly 'dumb' people, dumbed down by our educational system and political masters. Dumber we are!

Employers today complain of graduates who seem to lack the drive for work ingenuity and commitment. And the gahmen has been absorbing them, placing some of them in schools, expecting them to fill in the vacancies temporarily. Don't know what ruinous stage these non-marketable grads are bringing our schools to. How can the uninspired inspire the younger generation?

Decades of twisting and bending moral absolutes, providing crutches for one race in what mirrors the 'divide and rule' of the British colonialists.... one wrong begets more wrong. We bail out banks by printing money.. Okay! That's dumb. But we are doing something even dumber, raise a dumb generation by printing diplomas... we lower the passing marks for public exams, have double standards for PSD scholarships, two systems for entrance to the university, one easier than the other... so many double standards. We skewer ourselves, ready to be barbecued.... 8(

Feels like double jeopardy we're in, doesn't it?