One of the few times, we are better than Singaporean, ( one of the few times only....)

There is these two economists called Raymond Fishman and Edward Miguel.
They had written a book name Economic Gangsters---Corruption , Violence and the poverty of Nations. .

They tried to find some ingenious way to measure a country's culture against corruption, for example, giving some people from the country with a law break immunity and see how will they act according to it.

The measures, taken for UN diplomats in highly congested New York city, to see how much parking violation the Diplomats from each country commit.

As a results, our neighbour Singaporean , ends up with 3.6 violations per diplomats.
While we, Malaysian, proudly commit violations of 1.4 per diplomats.

Although the corruption index for singapore is -2.50 during time of measures and Malaysian is -0.73 ( the more negative the better ) .

And, skipped the money if you want to bought the book as it just academic reports only.... :)

Legacy of ashes ( book introduced )

Legacy of Ashes is a book written by Tim weiner focusing on the history of CIA ( Central Intelligence Agency ) for the past 60 yrs. CIA was found base on a mission, to gather all information regarding the enemy- soviet unions which to prevent America from suffering surprise attack like the one in Pearl Harbor. However, since the first day it start operate, the CIA involve itself into covert action, which sought to support the military junta in third world country to counter communism.

As a consequences, not only it constantly failed to predict and foresee up and coming important event, the america gradually facing the aftermath of their covert action. Included are the rising of islam extremist original funded and supported by the CIA, the assassination of president John.F.Kennedy, and also waste of money, human and resource in the paramilitary action.

Apart from the publicize image that CIA is an almighty agency, it is surprise to know that few of the CIA officer knew the language, the culture and the history of the area they cover. Besides, since the analyst of information always altered to suit the political needs, CIA had constantly failed to predict the soviet nuclear bomb, invasion of Afghanistan by soviet, withdrawal from Afghanistan by soviet, 911 and many other more despite the fact they gather show clue to it.

Besides, the CIA constantly beaten, cheated by its enemy, the KGB. As it always lack competent officer and threatened by the penetration of double agent, spies, the CIA produce many more false information, gradually lead to the bombardment of chinese embassy , the killed of thousand of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan, which further damage the image of America in the eye of the world.