'The umbrella concept doesn't work - whatever filters down are just crumbs slipping through the fingers of the cronies. It is no wonder why income disparity is the highest amongst the Malay community.'

Khairy wants 30% bumi equity by 2020

Kunta Kinte: Khairy Jamaluddin, please list out who owns the 21 percent wealth that you were highlighting. I bet you don't dare, because it will be mostly Umnoputras and some Ali Babas.

Thirty percent to Malays is a fair distribution, considering the bulk of the poor people in Malaysia are Malays. But what guarantees are there that the extra nine percent does not go the already filthy-rich cronies?

Being a Malay, and since there is no guarantee that I will gain anything, I would rather gamble my vote with Pakatan - the devil that I don't know, rather than to the devil we all know.

Ben: Khairy, the introduction of the NEP after the May 13, 1969 incident was to narrow the gap between the rich and poor so that such tragedies would not recur. Those days, the poor were the Malays and the rich were the non-Malays.

But the NEP was waylaid. Today, the poor and rich are no more only between the Malays and the non-Malays. We see numerous super-rich Malays and super-poor Malays, and you are one of those super-rich Malays.

So whatever ‘actions' or ‘think-tanks' you told your own fellow members to do or set up are only hot air and rhetoric. The Umno government has over the years provided crutches to the Malays, and until today they still need crutches.

Talk is easy, but implementation is another question. Wrong implementation of good policies will end up with the Malays using wheelchairs instead of crutches.

Magnus: Why restrict the aspirations of any Malaysian business to a pre-defined limit? Do you think that's how successful people or businesses or nations operate?

Do you think Sir Richard Branson built his Virgin empire, including his ultra-inspirational Virgin Galactic White Knight Spaceship space travel business, because he had a 30 percent limit to work towards? How about the human advancements that have benefited humanity from the IT businesses founded by Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?

So why limit any Malaysian's rights - whether bumiputera, Malay, Chinese, Indian - to 10, 20 or 30 percent of the country's wealth when the government can simply say that the sky is the limit for all Malaysians if they can reach it!

Now wouldn't that be more inspiring to hear from someone like MP KJ?

Satay Saiful: 30%? 50%? 80%? What's the purpose if all the bumi wealth are in the hands of a few like Mahathir Mohamad and his cronies? We, poor Malays, will remain poor forever. First, scrape the 7 percent bumi discount for properties above RM500,000 and give poor bumis 10 percent discount for properties below RM150,000.

Pemerhati: You don't have to wait until 2020 to achieve the 30 percent bumiputra equity. You might be able to achieve it soon after the next elections which are expected to be held around 2011.

All you have to do is vote in Pakatan Rakyat and then get them to detain under the ISA all the top BN people and their cronies who are known to have stolen billions of ringgit. They should only be released once they return all that they have stolen. Then distribute all those billions via some sort of equity to the poor bumiputras who have been sidelined so far. You would then probably not only achieve the target but may well exceed it.

Once all the money is recovered, the ISA could be reviewed. There may be some objections from some foreign countries because withdrawals of huge sums of money by the BN thieves from these countries might destabilise their economies, but their objections should be ignored.

ONG: The bumiputeras now form at least 65 percent of population, which by 2020, I estimate may grow to something close 70 percent. Calling for a mere 30 percent of equity shows a clear lack of ambition and not befitting of a good leader.

Khairy should be talking of a figure in the region of at least 50-60 percent, provided of course that such a percentage should be mainly, if not entirely, from their own efforts, and certainly not from stealing and robbing from taxpayers or from being parasitic on other peoples' efforts.

Changeagent: Good call, Khairy. Here are some suggestions on how Umno can expedite the 30 percent bumiputera equity target by 2020 - build three 100-storey mega-buildings instead of just one, complete that crooked bridge that links to Singapore, purchase 10 more submarines through Perimeker Sdn Bhd, triple the number of APs (approved permits) issued, and let's throw in another twin-tower building just for good measure.

It sounds ridiculous I know, but then again, it's just what Umno has been doing. Never mind that the government budget is running deficit, just continue to rob the country's coffers blind.

Swipenter: 30%, 67% or even 80% target - who is stopping anyone from achieving from whatever they want to achieve as long as they don't discriminate, cheat, steal or rob others of their hard work and rights to compete for a slice of the cake?

There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world and everybody has to work for his keeps. The so-called umbrella concept doesn't work and whatever filters down are just crumbs slipping through between the cracks of the fingers of the cronies. It is no wonder why the income disparity is the highest amongst the Malay community.

Address the root cause of the problem, not the symptoms, and stop blaming others for your shortcomings.

DOC: Hmmm... Khairy seems to be sounding like, or has been reduced to, a parrot these days. He just goes around repeating the same rhetoric echoed by the PM Najib Razak and DPM Muhyiddin Yassin.

Taking into consideration that the DPM and PM seem to be making contradictory statements (one is a racist, the other is a racist trying to promote racial unity), this gives us the impression that Khairy is rather confused.

VK Ling-a-Lingam: Tell us if Kelantanese Malays are treated as bumiputera. Not forgetting, our brethren in Sabah and Sarawak, and the Orang Asli should be sharing the 30 percent.

Perkasa: Be wary of Mkini, M'sian Insider

Logical: What we can see here is a bunch of people whose belief system are very different from the rest. Somehow their logic is not our logic and things that we see as logical is illogical to these people in Umno and Perkasa. But they are insisting that others, especially the Malays, to see their logic.

Under such circumstance, there is no clear visible line that differentiates what is logical from what is illogical.

They even regard the 30 percent equity holding as something to obtain without working hard on it, and as something they will get so long they are in power. You can see this among the Umno delegates who are blaming others for not getting the 30 percent equity. It's crazy.

ACR: Malaysiakini is certainly accurate in its reporting on the Umno general assembly. I recall in 2006, various blood-curdling statements were made at the assembly and they were picked up by Malaysiakini . True to the test, some of those delegates later faced disciplinary action by Umno, and none in the mainstream media reported those speeches.

So I don't see the logic in the statement by Zahid Md Arip who "urged the party to bar both news portals from covering future AGMs if their reports conflicted with the actual proceedings of the meeting".

Anonymous: I have been reading reports from newspapers and the online news portals. And as an old man, I do not take sides but enjoy watching the young playing their political games.

My judgement is that Malaysiakini carries the best reports in terms of accuracy and professionalism. The mainstream media are regrettably very far behind.

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