PRU13 - Malaysian Debt Crisis? Is it true?

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

Apparently Malaysians have a disease or sort in which they simply share so called "facts" without any effort to check & verify these "facts".

The most recent ones are the graph that depicts the growing amount of debt since DS Anwar Ibrahim up to DS Najib Razak at the helm. It's as though that Malaysia under DS Anwar was prosperous while ever since that, the economy is plunging. 

Fortunately, few of my well educated friends shared a post by one of their economic lecturers in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). I've copied the post in text here (feel free to browse the original page as per the link). 

It's not really a scholar writeup, so it should be readable to the most common of us.  

" 1. The year 1997 saw drastic changes in Malaysia. There was speculative short-selling of the Malaysian currency, the ringgit.
2. The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange's composite index fell from approximately 1300 to nearly merely 400 points in a few short weeks.
3. Bank Negara imposed capital controls and pegged the Malaysian ringgit at 3.80 to the US dollar.
4. By refusing aid and thus the conditions attached thereof from the IMF, Malaysia was not affected to the same degree in the Asian Financial Crisis as Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. (TAKE NOTE: ANWAR DULU BERKERAS SUH AMBIL PINJAMAN IMF!!!)
5. Regardless, the GDP suffered a sharp 7.5% contraction in 1998. (TAKE NOTE: 1998)
6. In order to rejuvenate the economy, massive government spending was made and Malaysia continuously recorded budget deficits in the years that followed. (TAKE NOTE: CONTINUOUSLY dan DEFICITS)
7. The Malaysian economy recovered from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis sooner than neighbouring countries (TAKE NOTE: INI TAKKAN TERCAPAI KALAU IKUT CKP ANWAR SUH PINJAM IMF)
So, obviously this should be the explanation for the graph, bukannya ANWAR tu bagus dan kerajaan selepas tu salah. Basically, deficit yg kita ada sekarang ini adalah ‘damaged done’ diwarisi dari krisis ekonomi 1997. 

Memanglah terbaiknya kita dapat hilangkan deficit ni tapi be realistic la bro, teruk sgt kita kena teruk dulu, banyak negara almost BANKRAP. Bukan senang nak betul2 recover dari disaster ni, dapat maintain agar hutang tu tak meningkat exponentially pun dah baik.  

In fact, kalau kita tengok betul2 graph ni, really not bad, the curve (line) almost looks like a constant. Lagipun mmg dah diterangkan dalam Wikipedia kat atas, mmg strategi utk recovery kita adalah keep spending (investing etc) so this naturally will increase the deficit tapi utk seketika la. Kalau betul strateginya, bila investment2 ini mula mendatangkan hasil, deficit ini akan hilang…insyaAllah tak lama lagi. "

Source: Mr Airil Yasreen

In gist, simply taking the debt at face value without taking into consideration of other factors like GDP and inflation is totally wrong.

It's like comparing Ringgit Malaysia (RM) directly with Pound Sterling! Duh!

I hope my friends would put politics aside first, then use rationality when it comes to this kind of matter. 

Do a bit of research first before sharing, it would cause any harm you see..