Read also: HishamH's Currency Manipulation and Economic Sabotage (posted at 330pm, a minute before my article below)
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| "Too timid" to try it, market players describe Tong |
So who's the real saboteur? The anonymous Exposing The Truth of Malaysians (malaysianexpose.wordpress.com) has been getting the hits since its "blog"-buster How Tong Kooi Ong is attempting to break Bank Negara and crash the Ringgit (Jan 28). The blog's "expose" was so earth-shattering that it was even translated into Bahasa Melayu h e r e and h e r e and quoted by numerous pro-Government portals, blogs and social media sites. The Prime Minister was asked to comment (h e r e) on the talk that Anwar Ibrahim's old buddy Tong Kooi Ong was behind the attack against the central bank and the RM and Tong himself has denied the allegations h e r e.
Latest development: the Malaysian Expose attempts to weave in Dr Mahathir Mohamad into their storyline. In Wikileaks tradition, Malaysia Today's article citing the blog headlines: LEAKED CHAT LOGS INDICATE TONG KOOI ONG-OWNED MEDIA USED MARKET MANIPULATION. MORE TO COME.
"It appears that Tong Kooi Ong believes he is a political mastermind who can manipulate the “Old man” (Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad) to be used in his efforts to destroy Malaysian economy for his own multi-billion profiting Soros style attack ..."
I've been asked if the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) was behind the Malaysian Expose because people wanted to believe that Najib Razak is doing this. I said I wasn't privy but the approach neither look nor sound like PMO, to me. More and more, though, the blog looks like it's run by people who don't really know the fundamentals of how the currency market works, let alone its intricacies and intrigues!
So if you ask me, I'm as inclined to believe that it could be a Black Op by Anwar's hit men and women like Rafizi Ramli. Why? Well, to discredit the Prime Minister and the blogs that support him, of course!
For one, USD1.4 billion to short the ringgit from August last year to January 2015 is such a fantastic sum. Fantastically small, that is. Miniscule. You need ten times that amount to cause a ripple.
I hardly know Tong. Used to cover him as a Business Times reporters back when Anwar was DPM/Finance Minister; other than that, have had no links to him whatsoever. But those who know him personally and as a fellow market player said the dude is "too timid" to be attempting anything that woudl tantamount to breaking the mighty Bank Negara or crashing the Ringgit.
To break a central bank and crash a currency: you cannot be timid.
So, if anything, what the Malaysian Expose has managed to expose, I'm afraid, is - yet again - the gullibility of us Malaysians.
Well, most of us, that is.