Malaysia showed promise a couple of decades ago. Their economy was growing, large companies were setting up shop and building factories, trying to diversify bey

Malaysia showed promise a couple of decades ago. Their economy was growing, large companies were setting up shop and building factories, trying to diversify beyond their traditional resource-based economy. With growth came rampant corruption, nepotism, an increase in fundamentalism, while they dug their heels into the quicksand that is quota-based reservations for Malays and the indigenous Bumiputra people. Not that they ever had much freedom of press, but the Malaysian media today is largely a mouthpiece of the UMNO without the guts to write about serious and growing economic, social and political problems. This was apparent during the MH370 crash when the media meekly swallowed the garbage and misinformation shovelled out by their officials, and now with their PM Najib unloading more guano about the huge scandals in their 1MDB organization and the three-quarters of a billion (with a B) dollars that mysteriously appeared in the PM's personal bank account. Their economy is being battered due to this double whammy of institutionalised corruption and weak demand for their resources, and I don't see this getting any better any time soon. They had a great future, they were myopic and blew it on short-term greed.