A dose of the Doctor In The House
Posted by siewfun | Posted in Author, Bestsellers | Posted on 10-03-2011
Tags: a doctor in the house, the memoirs of tun dr mahathir
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A Doctor In The House: The memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, officially went on sale 8 March 2010. Retailing at RM100, the book covers comprehensive chapters of Tun’s upbringing, his ascend to the post of Prime Minister, governing the country for 22 years, up to his post-retirement.
For the curious, below is an excerpt from the book. To read more, click here and here.
Chapter 2 Family Values
By no means am I saying that monogamous marriages are perfect. In Practice, disagreements cannot be avoided but they should not cause any break-up in husband-wife relations. For example, I am a stickler for time. Hasmah, however, is always late, inevitably having something to sort out just before we have to leave. At first this difference caused a lot of friction. Now I make jokes about her tardiness and make exaggerated efforts at helping to find what she is looking for. I irritate her by following her around the room. I lie and say we have to leave at 8pm when we actually have to leave later. Still, she is incorrigible. Mutual regard and good humour, as this small example shows, can preserve a marraige. To be happy, one must learn to make compromises with grace.
Chapter 52 Currency Crumble
I bought books on currency trading to better understand its mechanisms because I believed it was currency trading, not the basic condition of our economy itself or our currency which was affecting the ringgit. I had met Camdessus earlier and he seemed like a nice man. As Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar met the IMF head quite often. I asked Anwar to appeal to Camdessus to stop currency trading and argued that it was unnecessary and damaging to the economy of developing countries. I do not know whether Anwar stated my case to Camdessus, but no attempt was made to stop currency trading.
The world condemned our currency controls and many economists said that they were not in keeping with the open-market trading system. Experts predicted disaster for Malaysia and gleefully anticipated its return with a begging bowl. But we were not deterred. We believe we had found the right answer to the plundering of small countries by the rich currency traders. It may have been unconventional, but it worked. Even IMF eventually admitted that our way had worked, though they would not recommend it to other countries. Even Soros later acknowledged that Malaysia had done the right thing in not submitting to the IMF.