The Audacity of Greed

The definitive book on the 1MDB scandal, Billion Dollar Whale by the two intrepid Wall Street Journal reporters, Tom Wright and Bradley Hope has been selling like hotcakes in Malaysia. It is actually quite difficult to get hold of a copy as the local stores are perpetually out of stock.

I was lucky that I had pre-ordered the book before it went on sale. It arrived by courier rather auspiciously on a Saturday morning, the eve of Malaysia Day, 15th September. Initially, I had no intention of reading it yet, as I was in the middle of another engrossing book but after reading a couple of pages, I couldn't resist continuing. It was such a page-turner that I finished reading this 400-page book in one-and-a-half days.

As a Malaysian, I roughly know about the major facts in the 1MDB scandal from various blogs and news-sites which had bravely publicized it. But this book ties all the facts neatly together in a single very-readable narrative.

The last time there was such excitement over a book in this region was Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography, The Singapore Story. I was living and working in Singapore then, but I couldn't get hold of a single copy there. I finally managed to get my hands on a volume at a bookstore in Jakarta. I also paid a premium for it. I think it was also right after the 1998 riots there. The entire city was quiet but I remember spending happy nights there at the Regent Hotel, enjoying that blockbuster of a read.

I'm not going to review the Billion Dollar Whale here. But what struck me most about the story is the leading character in the 1MDB fiasco, the infamous Mr Jho Low. The sheer audacity of his guy! And what foolhardy brilliance! The result is a riproaring real-life tale so full of fantastic scenes and events that it is an inevitable candidate for a Hollywood movie--and not surprisingly it is already fast on its way.

It makes me reflect on the nature of greed. Greed is such a blackhole that once one is sucked into the field of its gravity, one can never get out. As a society, we tend to put rich people on a pedestal. We gawk at their fancy cars and large mansions; we envy their glittering lifestyle of lavish parties and expensive toys. We take that as emblems of success. But are they?

Perhaps greed, as Gordon Gekko puts it, "has driven the upward surge of mankind". I simply see greed as latent energy, which can be channeled into any cause. There's wise and unwise use of this energy. The Billion Dollar Whale chronicles an unwise application it. Ultimately, Greed is not unlike what they say about fire--a good servant but a bad master.