Malaysia's Foreign Reserve

We had some local morons talking about how Malaysia has a "strong" and "comfortable" foreign reserve of USD91billion, which would stop the Ringgit from sliding.

...

Er.

Complete and utter morons. And VERY LAZY to boot.

http://www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=12&pg=293&sdate=2008-10-31&lang=en

A 1 minute google search brought me to the bank negara website. Let me summarise:

Month vs Foreign Reserves.

July 2008: 125b
Aug 2008: 122.5b
Sep 2008: 109.7b
Oct 2008: 100.2b
Nov 2008: 97.7b
Dec 2008: 91.5b
Jan 2009: 91.3b

Hmm... ok, they seem to have stopped the slide in January... is it temporary or will it last? ... based on current economic conditions: IT WON'T LAST. DUH.

Anyhow, the gist of it is: our foreign reserves fell 34b in 6 months. BEFORE the recession has even really hit Malaysia.

Does that 91b look so big now?

This sort of reporting shows either lack of transparency(honesty), or stupidity. Or both.

It's bad enough when the country is in the hands of stupid but honest people. It was actually doing ok in the hands of the dishonest genius (Mahatir). But now, being run by people who are both stupid AND liars... that's no good, is it?