Kamala Harris - The Truths we Hold (A Summary) .

Source: https://www.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/the-truths-we-hold-coming-out-on-january-8-discusses-the-defining-moments-in-my-/10157364898867923/

        I completed this read about three months back. It was a book I purchased more than a year ago but did not have any sense of discipline to open and read. I remembered it again at the height of the US elections campaigning . I remember loads of commentaries brutally pick apart the two candidates and what they stand for, their inconsistencies, with hosts and commentators committing outright mockeries of each, thinking how an honest introspection like that could never happen here due to cultural differences. It's just... not our way. (To be honest, I had not even followed Malaysian elections that closely!) 

This years' elections had me on the edge of my seat. One reason why could have been due to the fact that the policies have a major ripple effect onto the international platform. It was especially important at a time and age where we have the Israel-Palestine war (two-state approach) (and US being for some reason, a country powerful enough to intervene and mediate or stop it for good), who would take a tough stance against China to prevent threats of possible espionage and/or who would be the target of economic sanctions, the strength of cryptocurrency, climate change concerns, who would manage the inflation bubble, the fact that housing was becoming increasingly unaffordable, immigration, policies to help the struggling middle class, electric vehicles, religion, abortion rights, unemployment rates, .. It was like watching the world about to undergo a big change in real time. It was two real polar opposite interests being advanced, with almost no overlaps. 

As an outsider, it really did look like a choice between one fraction who would run the country as if it were a giant business, versus one who would run the country to meet humanitarian, social, familial, middle class needs. One thing was clear, the latter was becoming increasingly unpopular due to the host of problems it spilled onto frustrated taxpayers. As the resounding quote from the recently watched movie Wicked goes:- 

"“The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

We have seen it time and time again, and it was apparent that these elections were no exception. It was so polarizing, not just to American citizens, but everywhere and everyone else. Each fraction needed an enemy to despise, and they were more than ready to make it the other. 

And just while it's not completely off topic yet , let me share some insightful links :- 

VOX: The debate over why Harris lost is in full swing. Here’s a guide.
(https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/383897/harris-lost-debate-why-trump-won)

BBC: Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or a doomed campaign?(https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr4l5j2v9do)

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So, anywayy, back to the book I read, The Truths we Hold -- I ended up really loving this auto-biography. It was honest, relatable, and provided valuable insight into the stances and policies she adopted. Something within me wanted to see *cough* an  indian woman *cough* lead USA. 

Here are some impactful takeaways from the book. It's done to inspire you to get the actual book and read the whole story :- 

Preface:

1. We cannot solve our most intractable problems unless we are honest about what they are, unless we are willing to have difficult conversations and accept what facts make plain. 

Chapter 1 : For the People 

This chapter talks about the nudge which led to her running for president. It depicts her growing up middle class, and her mother throwing back the question to her, what did you do ? It speaks of her bad first experience as a prosecutor, and the empowerment she felt from stopping /curbing the cycle of foster care -> juvenile detention -> adult criminal system. 

Memorable quotes:

1.  It was a defining moment in my life. It was the crystalisation of how, even on the margins of the criminal justice system, the stakes were extraordinary high and intensely human. It was a realisation that, even with the limited authority and intern, people who cared could do justice. It was revelatory, a moment that provided how much it mattered to have compassionate people working as prosecutors. 
   
   
2. My mother was expected to return to India after she completed her degree. Her parents had an arranged marriage. It was assumed my mother to follow a similar path. But fate had other plans. She and my father met and fell in love at Berkeley while participating in the civil rights movement. Her marriage -- and her decision to stay in the United States-- where the ultimate acts of self-determination and love. 
   
   
3. It was a community that was invested in its children, a place where people believed in the most basic tenet of the American Dream: that if you work hard and do right by the world, your kids will be better off than you were. We weren't rich in financial terms, but the values we internalised provided a different kind of wealth. 
   
   
4. I didn't walk away thinking I was a failure. I walked away thinking I had done a great job, and just made one small mistake. It was moments like those that helped me build a natural sense of confidence. I believed I was capable of anything. 
   
   
5. For too long, we'd been told that there were only two options: to either be tough on crime - an oversimplification that ignored the realities of public safety. You can want the police to stop crime in your neighbourhood and also want them to stop using excessive force. You can want them to hunt down a killer on your streets and also want them to stop using racial profiling. You can believe in the need for consequence and accountability , especially for serious criminals, and also oppose unjust incarceration. I believed it was essential to weave all these varied strands together. 
   
   
6. But as it turns out, neither law school nor the bar exam really teach you what to do in court, and in those early days, it can feel like you've landed on another planet where everyone speaks the language but you. 
   
   
7. "For the people" was my compass- and there was nothing I took more seriously than the power I now possessed. ...I was just starting out as a prosecutor, and yet I had the power to deprive a person of their liberty with the swipe of my pen. 
   
   
8. There is a giant chasm between arrest and conviction, and if you want to get from one to the other, you need legally obtained evidence. 

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Chapter 2: A voice for justice

Source: Creator: MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ | Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS (Copyright AP 2004)

This chapter detailed her experience as a public prosecutor, recognising the systemic issues about the justice system and trying to revamp it from the grassroot problems.

Memorable quote:

1. In the 1940s, the prospect of good jobs and affordable housing around the shipyard lured thousands of black Americans who were seeking opportunity and relief from the pain and injustice of segregation. These workers bent the steel and welded the plates that helped our nation win the Second World War.  
   
   
2. I wasn't running so I could have a fancy office downtown . I was running for the chance to represent people whose voices weren't being heard, and to bring the promise of public safety to every neighbourhood, not just some.
   
   
3. Still , this process didn't come naturally to me. I was always more than happy to talk about the work to be done. But voters wanted to hear about more than just policy. They wanted to know about me personally- who I was, what my life had been like, the experiences that shaped me. They wanted to understand what I was on a fundamental level. But I'd been raised not to talk about myself. I'd been raised with the belief that there was something narcissistic about doing so. Something in vain. And so, even though I understood what was motivating their questions, it took some time before I got used to it.
   
   
4. Modern campaigns rely on big data, analytics and sophisticated voter turnout models. But in my experience, I've found that a friend, a pen, and a bowl of spaghetti are just as effective.
    
5. When it comes to the things that matter most, we have so much more in common than what seperates us. 
   
   
6. I had run because I knew I could do the job-- and I believed I could do it better than it had been done. Still, I knew I represented something much bigger than my experience. At the time, there weren't many district attorneys who looked like me or had my background. There still aren't.
   
   
7. For me, to be a progressive prosecutor is to understand...that fairness is in short supply in a justice system that is supposed to guarantee it.
    
8. As a country, we specialise in releasing inmates into desperate, hopeless situations. We give them a little bit of money and a bus ticket and we send them on their way with a felony conviction on their record-not the kind of experience most employers are looking for. In so many cases, finding themselves rejected in the hiring process, they have no way of making money. From the moment they leave, they are in danger of returning. 
   
   
9. By its very design, the cash bail system favours the wealthy and penalises the poor. If you can pay cash up front, you can leave, and when your trial is over, you'll get all of your money back. If you can't afford it, you either languish in jail or have to pay a bail bondsman, which costs a steep fee you will never get back. 
   
   
10. Public safety depends on public trust. It depends on people believing they will be treated fairly and transparently. It depends on a justice system that is steeped in the notions of objectivity and impartiality. It depends on the basic decency our Constitution demands.

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Chapter 3: Underwater

This chapter details the rising costs of living and her being in a place where she could do something to save the middle class from drowning in their financial crisis, specifically the housing market crash. 

Memorable quotes: 

1. Few realised that they were actually purchasing ticking time bombs. 
   
   
2. Foreclosure is not a statistic. Foreclosure is a husband suffering in silence, knowing he's in trouble but too ashamed to tell his partner that he has failed. Foreclosure is a mother on the phone with her bank, pleading for more time-just until the school year is over. Foreclosure is a sheriff knocking at your door and ordering you out of your home. It is a grandmother on the sidewalk in tears, watching her life's posessions being removed from her house by strangers and left exposed on the yard. It is learning from a neighbour that your house was just auctioned off on the steps of the City Hall. It is the changing of locks, the immolation of dreams. It is a child learning for the first time that parents can be terrified, too. 
   
   
3. From the banks' point of view, the faster they got bad loans off their balance sheet, the faster their stock price would rebound. And if that meant breaking the law, so be it. The could afford the fine. It was painful to me when I realised that the bank viewed the fine as just the costs of doing business. It became clear to me that they had built it into their bottom line. It was a damning portrait of an aspect of Wall Street culture that persists , the part that seems to care little, if at all, about the collateral damage caused by recklessness and greed.
   
   
4. For the vast majority of families, buying a home is the biggest financial transaction they will ever be involved in. It's one of the most affirming moments in a person's adult life., a testament to all your hard work. You trust the people involved in the process. When the banker tells you that you qualify for a loan, you trust that she's reviewed the numbers and won't let you take on more than you can handle. When the offer is accepted, the broker is so happy for you,you'd think he's going to move into the house with you. And when it comes time you finish the paperwork, it's basically a signing ceremony. You might as well be popping champagne. Your broker is there. Your banker is there, and you believe they have your best interests at heart. When they put a stack of paper in front of you, you trust them, and you sign. And sign. And sign. And sign. 

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Chapter 4: Wedding Bells

Source: https://depositphotos.com/similar-images/106450052.html?qview=106450028
File ID: 106450052 By: hinhanni

This chapter tells the story of how she met her now husband.  And what a great complement he was (instead of diming her light). It also touches on her stance on LGBT's right to marriage. 

Memorable quotes:

1. We were following in the footsteps of giants, and widening the trail for our time.
   
   
2. The first dot concerned the importance of third-grade reading proficiency. Studies show that the end of third grade is a critical milestone for students. Up until that point, the curriculum focuses on teaching students to learn to read. In fourth grade, there's a shift, and students transition to reading in order to learn. If students can't read, they can't learn, and they fall further behind, month after month and year after year-which forces them onto a nearly inescapable path to poverty.
   
   
3. The connections were so clear. You could map the path for children who started drifting away from the classroom when they were young. The truant child became the wanderer... who became the target for gang recruiters... who became the young drug courier... who became the perpetrator-- or the victim-- of violence.

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Chapter 5: I say we fight 

This chapter details the journey to run as senator. To those outside of America, it's a state representative. Each state in the US elects two senators who serve six year terms in Washington DC. 

Memorable Quotes:

(I didn't highlight any paragraphs from this chapter) 

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Chapter 6: We are better than this 

This chapter details what happened when Kamala was elected as senator. 

Memorable Quotes:

1. I talked about the outsize impact on the state of California, because I believe California is a microcosm of who we are as Americans. 

Chapter 7: Every Body 

This chapter deals with Kamala's views and stance on healthcare, and on the side, tells the story of her mothers' death, a person who helped shape most of her fundamentals. This chapter does a great job at explaining the bridge between poverty/race and mortality.

Memorable Quotes:

1. Nearly all of us will face a prognosis that requires profound interaction with the healthcare system.
   
   
2. A 2016 study found a ten-year gap in life expectancy in America between the most affluent women and the poorest . That means that being poor reduces your life expectancy more than a lifetime of smoking cigarettes.
   
   
3. But think about that for a minute. This is the world we could return to if they abolish the ACA: women denied healthcare coverage for perpetuating the species. Let's remember the words of Mark Twain: "What sir, would the people of the earth be without women? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce."
   
   
4.  It should have come as no surprise that over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have spent about $2.5 billion on lobbying. Imagine the new drug trials they could have funded instead. 
   
   
5. Between October 2013 and April 2014, the company increased the price of Pravastatin, a statin that helps reduce cholesterol and prevent heart disease, by 573 percent.
   
   
6. It's heartless and wrong for companies to make a fortune by exploiting the fact that their customers literally cannot live without their products. 
   
   
7. 7. Black women are also at least three times as likely to die due to complications relating to pregnancy than white women- a shocking gulf that transcends socio-economic status. 
   
   
8. And because black Americans are more likely than their white counterparts to be born and raised in low income, high crime neighbourhoods, they are more likely to experience a phenomenon known as toxic stress, the result of trauma caused by things ranging from witnessing violence to experiencing it. 
   
   
9.  One study found that children who go through at least six adverse childhood experiences could see their life expectancy reduced by more than twenty years. Physiological stress leads to hypertension, which results in higher rates of infant and maternal mortality, among other conditions. Research has even found that certain levels of stress shorten our telomeres, which are structures that hold our chromosomes together. As we age, our telomeres naturally get shorter until cells start dying, which leads to disease. A study at the University of Michigan measured the telomere length in hundreds of women and found that black women were biologically more than seven years older than white women their age.
   
   
10. It's also the case that black Americans experience poorer care when they go to the doctor. White patients are 10 percent more likely to get screened for high cholesterol than black Americans, even though their rates of heart disease and stroke are higher among black Americans. Black patients are also less likely to be trated using procedures to repair blocked arteries. White women are more likely to get breast cancer screenings than black women and Latinas. And women of colour are more likely to have their symptoms dismissed by their doctor, regardless of their economic status. 

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Chapter 8 : The Cost of Living 

Source: https://depositphotos.com/photos/cost-of-living.html?qview=577973632

This chapter goes into the income imbalances across America, in view of the ever rising costs of living which was highlighted to her through the letters from people within her constituency. It deals with income polarisation, how today's financial policies are 'hollowing out the middle class'. 

Memorable Quotes:

1. The nation's clearest voices and strongest leaders in the fight for economic justice had been suddenly, irrevocably, silenced...I remind people that when you adjust for inflation, the federal minimum wage is actually lower now than when Dr. King spoke of 'starvation wages' in 1968. What does that say about how our country values the sanctity and dignity of work?
   
   
2. For me, reading these letters isn't just about understanding what their lives are like, both the joys and the fears. When people write to me, it is often as a last resort. They are struggling, and in real trouble, but nothing else they've tried has worked. And so they turn to me and share with me the things that have upended their lives. 
   
   
3. How can you dream when your pay barely budges no matter how hard you work, while everything else keeps getting so much more expensive? How can you dream when your son is sick but you can't afford your copay or deductible? A middle-class life isn't what it used to be. Being middle-class ought to mean having financial security and stability. But how is that possible when the cost of living is so high that you live one setback away from catastrophe? An injury. An illness. Nobody expects life to be easy, but it's not supposed to be a life-altering crisis when your car's transmission fails. 
   
   
4. Every letter stands on its own. But, together, they tell the same story. It is the story of Americans trapped in a cost-of-living crisis, where everything from housing and health care to child care and education is way more expensive than it used to be while wages remain as low as they have been for decades. The letters I receive consistently tell the story of the hollowing out of the middle class, and of an economic life defined by intense struggle. 
   
   
5. From the big business's perspective, it was those who owned a piece of the company who deserved the lion's share of the riches, not the people who made the company run. So while productivity improved 74 percent between 1973 and 2013, worker compensation rose just 9 percent. 
   
   
6. What's the result of all this? It's been great for the richest 1 percent of American households, who now own 40 percent of the nation's wealth, which adds up to roughly $40 trillion. But it's been a financial nightmare for the middle class. According to research done by United Way, 43 percent of households can't afford basic expenses: a roof over their head, food on the table, child care, health care, transportation, and a cell phone. 
   
   
7. We are running out of time. That's the hard truth . And not just in terms of dealing with what is so urgent right now. We are running out of time to deal with major changes to come. With the rise of artificial intelligence, we are likely to face an automation crisis in this country with millions of jobs on the line. Industries are changing. Self-driving trucks couod cost 3.5 million truck drivers their jobs. The entire tax preparation business could disappear, too. The McKinsey Global Institute found that as many as 375 million people worldwide will need to switch jobs because of automation and predicts that 23 percent of current working hours could become automated by 2030. 

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Chapter 9 : Smart on Security 

Source: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/medium-shot-security-officer-posing-studio_39916156.htm

As the name suggests, this chapter details Kamala's stance on security. In her pursuit of being more in touch with the issues surrounding security, she joined the Senate Intelligence Community. It's top secret but in there people are not seperated by their political beliefs, they are all united to serve one purpose, to protect America from her enemies. It also explores the invisible thread linking climate crises to an influx of disease , threatening the safety of the average American. 

Memorable quotes:

1. The rigid partisanship that has paralyzed much of Washington somehow fades as we enter the room/ We are, all of us, keenly focused on the weight of the work we are undertaking and its consequences. There is simply no room for anything other than a focus on America's national security and the protection of anything other than a focus on America's national security and the protection of American's privacy and civil liberties. 
   
   
2. I sometimes refer to it as a war without blood: there are no soilders in the field, no bullets and bombs. But the reality is cyber warfare aims to weaponise infrastructure , and, at its worst, could result in casualties. Imagine, for example, a cyberattack on railroad switching signals or hospital generators or a nuclear power plant. 
   
   
3. Climate change can be seen from many angles. Some see it purely as an environmental issue. They point to the destruction of habitats, the melting of ice sheets, and a comong mass extinction of species. Others see it as a public health issue that demands a world where clean air and clean water are readily available. There is also the economic dimension of climate change: ask farmers about the complexity of their work, about their precise and measured focus on weather patterns, about the incredibly narrow margins that exist between a successful harvest and a ruinous one, and you will come to understand that extreme weather events and unpredictable shifts in the climate are nothing to dismiss. 
   
   
4. But when you speak to generals, when you speak to senior members of the intelligence community and experts on international conflicts, you will find that they look at climate change as a national security threat -- a "threat multiplier" that will exarcebate poverty and political instability, creating conditions that enable violence, despair, even terrorism. An unstable, erratic climate will beget an unstable, erratic world.
   
   
5. Climate change also increases the risk of deadly global pandemics making their way to the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that between 2006 and 2016, the number of Americans infected by diseases like West Nile, Zika, and Lyme more than tripled. As temperatures continue to warm diseases are flourishing in parts of America where they wouldn't have been able to survive in the past. 
   
   
6. This isn't the stuff of science or of a dystopian novel set far in the future Climate-driven crisis is already on the rise. In late 2017, for example, water reserves fell so low in Cape Town, South Africa, that the city of more than three million people, South Africa's second largest, was at risk of having its taps run dry. Residents started showering over buckets so that they could reuse the water in their washing machines. Farmers had to abandon about a quarter of their crops. 
   

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Chapter 10 : What I've Learned

This chapter ties all the previous ones together in a neat close, in the form of summarised nuggets of wisdom, before some pictures are slotted right after and the books end.

Memorable Quotes:

1. Of course, it isn't possible to reduce the complexity of leadership to simple slogans. But my team and I rely on these mantras as touchstones and guideposts -- as starting points for policy conversations and as ways to determine whether we're on the right track.
    
2. It's the kind of topic I have to remind myself not to talk about too much at cocktail parties, since most people don't find it as interesting as I do. "Why the fascination? He explains that 40 percent of people on earth owe their lives to higher crop outputs that were made possible only because of fertilizer. It was the literal fuel for the Green Revolution, which helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. What Gates understand is that there is a big difference between announcing a plan to end world hunger and actually ending it/ And closing the gap depends on seemingly mundane details like fertilizer and weather patterns and the height of wheat. 
   
   
3. Politics is a realm where the grand pronouncement often takes the place of the painstaking and detail-oriented work of getting meaningful things done. This isn't to say that there's  anything inherently wrong with grand pronouncements. Good leadership requires vision and aspiration. It requires the articulation of bold ideas that move people to action. But it is often the mastery of the seemingly unimportant details, the careful execution of the tedious tasks, and the dedicated work done outside of the public eye that make the changes we seek possible.
    
4. My point is: You have to sweat the small stuff-because sometimes it turns out that the small stuff is actually the big stuff. 
   
   
5. Words have the ability to empower and to deceive, the power to soothe and to hurt. They can spread important ideas and wronghead ones. They can spur people to action, for good or ill. Words are incredibly powerful, and people in power, whose words can carry furthest and fastest, have an obligation -- a duty -- to speak them with precision and wisdom. Scripture tells us, "The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint , and whoever has understanding is even tempered.
    
6. Second, I choose to speak truth. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it leaves people feeling uneasy. When you speak truth, people won't always walk away feeling good-and sometimes you won't feel so great about the reaction you receive. But at least all parties will walk away knowing it was an honest conversation. That is not to say that all truth is uncomfortable, or that the intention is to cause discomfort. Many truths are incredibly hopeful. I am simply saying that the job of an elected official is not to sing a lullaby and soothe the country into a sense of complacency. The job is to speak truth, even in a moment that does not welcome or invite its utterance.
   
   
7. I've seen a lot in my years of public service. And what I've learned can't all be boiled down. But I've come away with the firm belief that people are fundamentally good. And that, given the chance, they will usually reach out a hand to help their neighbour. I've learned, through history and experience, that not all progress is gradual or linear. Sometimes, it simply goes from one plateau to another. Sometimes, we fall back tragically. Sometimes, we leap forward and achieve things beyond the realm of what we thought possible. I believe our job is to provide the force propulsion that will get us to a higher plane.
   
   

Billion Dollar Whale- A candid review by a young lawyer with a budding interest in Politics and International Relations (Part 1: The Invention of Jho Low)

I'll start with the basics. 

1. WHO are authors Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, anyway? 

They are wizards JOURNALISTS.

Wright and Hope worked together at the Wall Street Journal and led the newspaper’s team that exposed the 1Malaysia Development Bhd. (1MDB) scandal, a $6 billion fraud that toppled a government and forced Goldman Sachs to pay the largest ever penalty under U.S. bribery laws.

Their book, the Billion Dollar Whale, which was also the subject of my read for most of this year, is a testament to the scale of what a firm belief in your cause, supplemented with good quality research, journalism and connections can do to unearth the thick GRIME of international scale crime, business and politics.

2. General Reading Experience

This book was one giant encyclopedia of new vocabulary, concepts, places within countries (I've never thought to research), business terminologies, the introduction of financial vessels and mechanisms, and plain, dirty, politics.

With my long work hours and busy schedule, it was not an easy read to tackle in one continuous sweep, often done with long breaks in between, lasting weeks, which made me forget what I read in the previous chapter. That was also why I had to annotate along the way. 

Sometimes in a single page or even a line of the book, when a foreign word or concept is introduced to me, I absolutely have to google it, before I proceed reading the next line, then in doing so, I find myself going down a rabbit hole of information that deviates so far from what I started reading. Then learning that rabbit hole of side info drains the mind. That's another reason it took as long as it did to complete the book.

By the time I got to the final chapter and the epilogue, I felt a huge sense of DEFEAT and nihilism. There were many parts of this book which were stellar in its writing but I will go with this on page 371 :- 

"It's tempting to see this kind of corruption as a disease afflicting poor countried, where kleptocrats live in splendour at the expense of their long-suffering populations. But Jho Low's crime is a modern take on that old story. The money he took, by and large, were not stolen directly from Malaysia's treasury or through padded government contracts. Instead, it was cash that 1MDB borrowed on international financial markets with the help of Goldman Sachs."

So today, I am going to attempt a post-mortem on Part 1 of the book, which mostly elaborates on the key players.

Part 1- The Invention of Jho Low :

Every villain has a backstory. 

Chapter One: Fake Photos

Jho Low came from a family of traders, with his grandfather originating from Thailand with nothing more than a small fortune. But, in 1998, the last two years of his high school, Jho Low had one thing working in his favour. Harrow. (An elite boarding school in England)

Image from https://www.englischeinternate.com/schools/harrow-school

Those from Harrow come from families wealth amassing BILLIONS, which, by the way, is ONE THOUSAND MILLIONS. It was here that he mixed with the children of royal families of Brunei and Kuwait. Then in an attempt to impress them, gloated that he was the "prince of Malaysia" to earn some street credit. In reality, he lived in a modest bungalow in Georgetown. His father, Larry had recently sold his shares in a garment company which were worth roughly $15 million , an astronomical sum at the time. From his small gambits here, it was his first lesson that power and prestige-or at least the appearance of it- opened all kinds of doors. 

Chapter 2 : Asian Great Gatsby 

..is a preview into Jho Low's first signs of lavishness, which depicts his 21st birthday, the kind where a model wearing only a bikini made of lettuce leaves walked across the dance floor and reclined on a bar top-- with sushi lined up ON HER.

Pictured here is Shampoo, Philladelphia's finest at the time- in 2001. 

(I just found out it's not operational anymore)

Low first gained the moniker- 'Asian Great Gatsby' , an ode to how he observed his parties but never partook in them. Then, in 2003, he persuaded his Arab friends to give him a tour of the Middle East, introducing him to the richest families and most influential firms. Then, in Abu Dhabi, Low made a connection that would alter the course of his life. 

Chapter 3: Win Tons of Money

The title is a reference to Low's first company, Wynton Group which he joked stood for "win tons" of money.

Low, now 22, was having lunch with Yousef Al Otaiba , a fresh faced FOREIGN POLICY adviser to the country's sheikhs. This was his window to question on power structures within UAE, which sheikhs controlled the biggest pots of money, etc. In 2003, Oil prices were on an upward trajectory. Otaiba was almost insatiable in wealth despite having it all by his 30s. Otaiba is one of the 12 sons of UAE's former Oil Minister. This meant a privilleged upbringing. He also graced Georgetown where he attended for four years but did not graduate).Then at 26, he became an adviser to the Crown prince, Mohammed Bin Zayed al Nahyam. He was also influential in Washington.  While being well versed in politics, he was a novice at business. This was Low's window to talk up Malaysia as a prospect, and doors for Low in Abu Dhabi opened up. 

* Info grab: 

MUBADALA= Abu Dhabi formed Mubadala in 2002 to diversify its oil dependent economy. The idea was to raise capital from international markets , plowing the money into industries like real estate and semiconductors. It was part of a trend in which rich states were playing a greater role in the global economy. It borrowed from global markets and actively tried to move economy into new directions.

(*Other examples of sovereign wealth funds - Norway's Government Pension Funds) 

This planted a seed in Low's mind. Malaysia had a soverign wealth fund, Khazanah Nasional, but nothing like Mubadala. As he was conjuring a way to capitalise on his father's real estate and teade with his Wharton and Harrow contacts, it dawned on him that the influential backer available to him was the powerful family of Najib Razak. 

*the Law and Order theme song plays

Image from https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2022/08/26/the-story-of-najib-a-victory-a-tragedy/

Chapter Four: We're Going to Need a Bigger Van

In December 2007, Najib Razak as Deputy Prime Minister together with his wife, Rosmah Mansor, were trying to load the car taking them to the airport. But there was a problem. The plethora of luxury boutique shopping (boxes and shopping vans)  could not fit the car taking them to the government jet on standby at the VIP hangar. This was till a VAN needed to be brought in to haul the excess baggage. 

Info grab:

Najib Razak was educated in Malvern College , a British boarding school . hMMnN. Something about these schools. 

Image from https://whichschooladvisor.com/uk/school-review/malvern-college

He also received education from the University of Nottingham. He preferred English to Malay, and watched English shows like 'Yes Minister' , a sitcom about a bumbling government minister. 

Image from https://www.facebook.com/331481044571/posts/10163341449919572/?locale=ms_MY

Rosmah came from more humble origins. Her parents were middle class teachers but she partly grew up on the grounds of the palace of a Malaysian sultan whom adopted this family as his own. This exposed her to wealth. It also created insecurity of not truly belonging with the aristocrats. Before meeting Najib in 1980s, she eyed Brunei royalty as prospects for marriage. Relationships appeared to be transactional. 

Meanwhile, Low was setting up base in KL Petronas Towers, a symbol of prestige,  splurging on interior design and staff. He recruited Seet Li Lin, a Singaporean he befriended at Wharton.  He also reeled in Eric Tan , a key member who later came to be known as 'Fat Eric' .

Image from https://www.sarawakreport.org/2015/02/jho-lows-people-a-life-in-the-day/

Image from https://www.kosmo.com.my/2022/06/14/eric-tan-sekutu-jho-low-diisytihar-bankrap/

To build connections, he would send chocolates and flowers to prospective partners and offered personal favours. He needed a malay protector and that is where Nizam Razak, met through Riza Aziz, stepson of Najib Razak stepped in. 

Chapter Five: A Nice Toy 

Image taken from https://www.newarab.com/news/uae-ambassador-washington-linked-multi-billion-fraud-scandal

Otaiba's business partner, Shaher Awartani (recently becoming UAE's ambassador to the United States) had good news. The pair was about to make $10 million through a deal Low set up in Malaysia. The chapter is titled based on Awartani's suggestion that they should buy themselves a "nice toy", i.e a  Ferari after what could only be described as a 'transfer from Jho'. 

Shaher Awartani came into the picture from a time when Jho Low was keen on leveraging his connections, where he set up a British Virgin Islands entity known as 'Abu Dhabi Kuwait Malaysia Investment Company' and gave free shares to Otaiba and minor aristocrats from Kuwait & Malaysia. This created an illusion of prominent key players backing the company. This eased the loans of tens of millions. He used this to acquire construction companies, and a subsidiary of Wynton took loans to finance minority stakes in the Iskandar land project alongside Mubadala. 

Low also utilised offshore accounts. An 'offshore' designation refers to jurisdictions whose financial systems are much larger than their domestic economies; in other words, the banking system exists purely for non-residents to stash cash, compared to other banks which serve local citizens and companies.

Low proceeded to set up ADIA Investment Corporation and KIA Investment Corporation--which gave the illusion of being related to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) , two of the most famous wealth funds in the world. The chapter goes on to depict the rich but naive Chief Minister Taib (One of Malaysia's richest individuals, dabbling in logging and oil palm plantations of Borneo Island was his next victim.) 

Image taken from 
https://www.sarawakreport.org/2012/09/usd15-billion-taib-is-the-richest-man-in-malaysia/

Taib had heard of Low who was touting Mubadala's ambitions to invest more widely and Taib was keen to build palm oil refineries and other energy projects in Sarawak. Low persuaded Taib to buy the construction companies and Iskandar land. A few months later, Wynton, Low's company completed the sale of its stake in Iskandar Land to UBG, a holding company overseen by Taib. in return for cash and shares. It made him th largest shareholder for UBG-- and he beasted of his $110million profit for Wynton by selling to Taib at a significant markup. 

Jho Low traded his E-series Mercedes for a Black Ferarri, his new toy. But this displeased his arab counterparts who felt sidelined and that they were only being "throwed a bone" when it was their name that resulted in the profits in the first place. 

This was how Jho Low first developed a deal making reputation. He was no longer a nobody but an investor with a track record. This meant business meetings and society gatherings at Kuala Lumpur's elite. It was THIS NAME BUIDING that led him to an ambitious banker at Wall Street. You guessed it.

Tim Leissner.

Chapter 6: Doctor Leissner , I Presume

Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs steered towards China, where it made money advising the communist government on how to privatize companies and become one of the 1st foreign banks to set up a local securities joint venture. 

*Definition: The term "securities" includes investments such as stocks, bonds, notes, debentures, oil and gas contracts, etc

China's potential was looking good. Malaysian economy which supplied China with raw materials were registering their own solid economic expansions of more than 5% annually. This invited some sort of a 'look east' policy. 

(TL:DR: A policy set up by Mahathir in 1982 to trade more with Japan /South Korea versus British brands)

In early 2009, thirty nine year old German, Tim Leissner who was a rising star at Goldman in Asia was tasked to discuss with Sultan of Terengganu, and at the time, Agong, Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin. Leissner spent a decade building connections in Malaysia. One of those connections led to Jho Low,  (through his friend Roger Ng, another investment banker in Goldman) who brokered this meeting. Now it was time for the groundwork was to take fruit. 

      

Top Picture taken from https://www.hmetro.com.my/global/amerika-utara/2022/02/811471/skandal-1mdb-leissner-mengaku-tamak;
Bottom picture taken from https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2022/11/12/roger-ng-sues-ex-goldman-boss-leissner-for-us130mil/

Low informed Leissner of the sultan's plans to set up an investment fund to manage his state's oil and gas wealth. By the end of the brokered meeting, Goldman clinched a contract to advise on the formation of a new fund which was to be known as the Terengganu Investment Authority for a fee of $300,000.00.

(This was considered a trivial sum by Wall Street standards!)

Backstory on Leissner-- he comes from MONEY. He's he middle of three brothers. His dad was a senior executive at Volkswagen. He received exclusive training camps in Europe and United States. As a 17 year old he spent a year as an exchange student in Millbrook School in upstate New York. This was his first taste of being abroad.

Something about these SCHOOLS man! 
Image from https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/A-new-era-of-Look-East-would-boost-both-Japan-and-Malaysia

After college in Germany, he headed to the States, in the University of Hartford in Connecticut for an MBA. Upon marrying a French-iranian he met there, he got his first job as an associate in J.P Morgan. While working there, he obtained a doctorate in business administration from the University of Somerset. (one of those colleges known for selling degrees to those looking to give their credentials a facelift)His interest in Asia stemmed from work done in Indonesia. By 1997 his marriage was falling apart and by then he moved to Hong Kong to work a new job with Lehman Brothers.

Goldman colleagues noticed his flair for making clients feel like they had a deep, personal connection with him. He was a relationship bankker, skilled at reeling important executives through magnetism than structure. He's the kind of guy who would sit next to clients in a boardroom than across it. 

*Info dump:

Traditional sovereign wealth funds invest oil profits and Low honed in on Terengganu, which was rich in offshore oil and gas fields. 

Low was ambitious of putting together a sovereign wealth fund in Malaysia. But he needed a source of initial funds. (He got acquainted with Sultan Mizan's sister who sat on board of the construction companies.)

This was why he needed the involvement of Goldman and Leissner. Within months of meeting with the sultan, Low was addressing bankers informally as "Bro", suggesting ways to depict the fund in media. HOWEVER, IN MAY 2009, the Sultan got cold feet. Low wanted to rush the deal through but had no clear investment plan. There wasn't even a full management team in place. Sultan Mizan was cautious of not gambling away the state's oil wealth. (Good on him!) 

Low, trying to push this deal through to the Sultan with no real plan:-

Low was close to emulating the fund manager he watched in the Middle East up close, but he was back to square one with Sultan Mizan ordering the funds to be shuttered. 

Me, after reading that he might have saved his state from possible embezzlement:-

The stars must have aligned for Low and he received his big break in the form of Najib Razak, who needed a pot of money to help restore his party's popularity and who recently became the Prime Minister in April 2009. Low moved fast to save his stillborn investment fund.

Chapter 7: Saudi "Royalty" (The First Heist)

This chapter refers to the fake royalty , one Tarek Obaid being the partner to the company PetroSaudi International which pioneered a joint venture plan with 1MDB (we will get to the backstory on its formation in this chapter). Being Chief Executive of Petrosaudi, allowed the bankers in Geneva, its base, to call him "Sheikh", a title normally reserved for royals or religious clerics, even though he was a commoner. 

Prior to reading this chapter, I would have had no reason to imagine what an 'Alfa Nero' was. But this is where Prime Minister Najib was cruisin' , off the coast of Monaco in the French Riviera with his royal highness, Prince Turki bin Abdullah, its owner.

Image of Prince Turki bin Abdullah taken from https://saudileaks.org/en/turki/

(Slight digression from the main topic: I recently learned that Monaco is its own country neighboring Nice, France, it is the second smallest country to the Vatican, it's one of the wealthiest countries--with the number of millionaires and billionaires residing in Monaco on the rise, it's a magnet for hedonists, has the most expensive real estate in the world, has a very low crime rate, hosts the Formula One Grand Prix)

In the first few weeks of new administration, Low helped Najib link up with the middle east. This was in line with his ambitions to transform Malaysia to a developed nation status. For this, he needed ARAB MONEY. 

 In Abu Dhabi, after dinner with the crown Prince in Emirates Palace, Najib announced the formation of a new Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, to be called 1 MALAYSIA DEVELOPMENT BERHAD(1MDB). It was simply the Terengganu Investment Authority which had raised $1.4 billion in Islamic bonds .

The prince had an interest to protect too, with PetroSaudi International, an international oil exploration firm would win rights in foreign countries keen to acquaint with Saudi Arabia. But the company's business was negligible. 

Info Dump :- What is an Islamic bond?

The idea is that since interest is forbidden in Islamic law, the issuer sells an investor group a certificate, then uses the proceeds to purchase an asset that the investor group has direct partial ownership interest in. The issuer must also make a contractual promise to buy back the bond at a future date at par value. 

Low cashed in on connections with Otaiba to arrange the meeting with the crown prince and to obtain a pledge for them to invest in Malaysian projects. 

What was 1MDB's original purpose?

1MDB was intended to invest in green energy and tourism to create high-quality jobs for Malaysians. The fund, as represented by Low, would take money from Middle East and borrow from global markets. The SECONDARY purpose was of course as a vessel for political financing. Profits from here could fill a war chest that could be used to pay off political supporters and voters! The fund's charitable arm was intended to award scholarships and build affordable housing.

ON THE BOAT, Prince Turki and Najib began discussing the possibility of Petrosaudi partnering with the new 1MDB fund. Days after the meeting on the boat, Prince Turki wrote to Najib with official Saudi government letterhead, promising a prospect of a joint venture, with 1MDB pumping in $1 billion in cash, and Petro Saudi would put its oil assets (rights to develop fields in Turkmenistan and Argentina).

Chapter 8 : Hitting a Gold Mine 

This chapter introduces Patrick Mahony. A British banker who worked for Ashmore. He was director of investments at Petro Saudi. After the meeting in the yacht, Najib agreed to the outline of the deal presented by Obaid, so Mahony and Low were in the Mandarin Oriental in Columbus Circle to put the plan in motion. 

Described as handsome,  talented and ambitious, and having a reputation for being smart but cold. As news articles now report it, the now ex JV partner and Chief investment officer is alleged to have received a mysterious $33million fee in October 2009.  :- Image taken from https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/jul/28/patrick-mahony-calls-xavier-justos-wife-laura-audio

He communicated with Obaid, (whom he acquainted with in the school they attended together in Geneva) in a mixture of English and French. He stumbled across Jho Low who was promising to bring $1 billion in sovereign money into a deal. With that, this deal was made a priority.

Although the initial plan was for oil exploration, Low sensed an opportunity for financial killing. Najib held the highest position as CHAIRMAN of the Board of advisors with power to both appoint and veto decisions. The fund appointed Shahrol Halmi as Chief Executive , Casey Tang as finance director, and Jasmine Loo as legal counsel. The fund had given Low a freehand to sprinkle his associates, but he himself did not hold any prominent position. 

Halmi was a former consultant at Accenture Malaysia. He was thrust into the limelight after a damning report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) blamed him for the mismanagement at 1MDB.
- Image obtained from https://theedgemalaysia.com/article/cover-story-who-shahrol

Image taken from https://www.thevibes.com/articles/news/72931/govt-seeks-to-seize-car-properties-cash-from-ex-1mdb-executive-director

*Re Casey Tang:- As recent as May 2023, The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said it had succeeded in repatriating an individual involved in 1MDB and SRC International investigations through cooperation with international law enforcement agencies after being 'on the run' since 2018.

*Re Jasmine Loo - As recent as September 2023 it was reported that Former 1MDB lawyer Jasmine Loo has led police to identify assets worth over RM93.2 million that were purchased using 1MDB funds (Deputy Inspector-General of Police Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay) after she surrendered herself to Malaysian authorities on July 7th, 2023. 

Coming back to the setting up of 1MDB, days after the Mandarin Oriental meeting, Jho Low linked Obaid, Patrick Mahony and Seet Li Lin in Geneva for breakfast near the lake at the center of the city.

Geneva had been a cesspool of fugitives and more recently, global financiers:-

Image taken from https://www.worldatlas.com/lakes/lake-geneva-switzerland.html

The purpose of the meeting was for all the key players to be able to communicate directly without cc-ing Low for governance purposes. He also instructed his inner circle to destroy emails after reading them. After the breakfast, Mahony emailed PetroSaudi's bank BSI to kickstart a business account for the new entity. Mahony explained that the new venture would be receiving $1 billion from a Malaysian fund and Low would be taking a cut as a fee for brokering the deal. 

However, the BSI banker wrote an email turning down the seemingly dodgy arrangement, with special emphasis on the involvement of Jho Low.

The BSI Banker's alarm bells ringing (is ALL OF US who follow this story):-

But while BSI closed their doors, J.P Morgan welcomed them in , asking minimal questions on why a sovereign wealth fund needed a relationship with a Swiss private bank. In order to make the PetroSaudi and 1MDB JV legit, a former senior US State Department analyst at Lehman Brothers, Edward Morse was consulted to valuate PetroSaudi's assets before the $1 billion could be sent over. 

Pictured is Edward Morse, image taken from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-09/citi-oil-veteran-says-20s-likely-on-unique-demand-supply-shock

Mahony needed a valuation of $2.5 billion for PetroSaudi. Within two days, he was done with his report, a technical analysis of reserves and prices based on numbers provided by PetroSaudi. His final figure sat at 3.6 billion.He left with $100,000.00 for the work.

In other words, Edward Morse basically did this:-

On September 26th 2009, 1MDB's newly constituted board met in KL to approve the initial $1 billion transfer from the fund to the Swiss Account set up for the Joint Venture. A multi-million dollar deal had crystalised from a span of a month from a meeting on a yacht. 

Such a time frame to complete due diligence, asset valuations, and other legal checks was unheard of. Such deals would normally take a YEAR to conclude.

Chapter 9: "I Feel the Earth Move"

The title of this chapter derives from Seet Li Lin, (Low's Wharton contact) who posted on Facebook:- 

"i feel the earth move..."

..on the same day that they managed to commit, basically, a daylight robbery of $700 MILLION.

---

Jacqueline Ho in KL Court as the 30th prosecution witness in the 1MDB trial  is the best image I could find on the net unfortunately - Image from https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2022/06/21/deutsche-bank-pressed-to-speed-up-1mdbs-us1b-money-transfer-as-pm-najib-would-be-issuing-press-statement-ex-banker-tells-court/13416

Jacqueline Ho, an employee with Deutsche Bank in Malaysia was the relationship manager for 1MDB, and Casey Tang, the funds' executive director was on the phone pressuring her to make payments out of the country. The problem?

The Deutsch Compliance Department had serious doubts:-

'Why wasn't $1 billion flowing into the joint venture with Petro Saudi as agreed by 1MDB Board? How come Casey was asking for $700 million (Jho Low's commission) to be put into an unnamed account with RBS Coutts in Zurich?'

Casey tried to pass the unknown account off as being owned by Petro Saudi. Jacqueline's supervisor dialed Bank Negara Malaysia to check if it was okay to proceed with the enormous transaction. Bank Negara green-lighted it, so long as the money was going into the joint venture.

Then, Deutsche sent two wires around 3 pm. One was $300 million to the joint venture's new account at J.P Morgan (Suisse) and another , $700 million to the (now not so) mysterious account at Coutts in Zurich.

Now, bear in mind the money was travelling in dollars. Pursuant to American anti-money-laundering laws, correspondent banks are obliged to check its source and use. But with TRILLIONS of dollars moving in and out daily, the mechanism is almost superficial. J.P Morgan let the money through. 

Two days later, Coutts' regulatory risk department in Zurich sent an email to 1MDB, confused by Deutsche Bank's omission of the full name of the beneficiary of $700 million transfer as was required. Shahrol Halmi covered it up by saying it was owned by a Seychelles Company called Good Star Ltd, and represented that it is 100% owned by PetroSaudi International Ltd. 

In reality it was a bearer sharer company, (the kind made illegal in many jurisdictions) and its single share was held by ......

Any guesses for who Good Star Ltd really belongs to? 

Yes, Jho Low. And yes, $700 million. 

Coutts bankers were not buying this story. So Casey Tang and Josephine Ho had to take a trip to Zurich to 'damage control' . But this time, the narrative was that 1MDB decided to put in $700 million into the recipient of these monies, Good Star, an investment management company. 

Why would a Malaysian state fund dump that BIG amount of money into a Seychelles fund management company? 

Unfortunately, (for Malaysians) , whatever the Coutts bankers' concerns were, the bank pushed the transfer through. The head of the table divided the shares among the group, with Obaid receiving $85 million, and a further $68 million. Obaid then paid $33 million to Patrick Mahony , then sent $77 million of that amount to Prince Turki. 

This was Low's first major heist . Even after his partners received their cut, Jho Low still had sole control over hundreds of millions of dollars. This catapulted him to see what could be in store for him on an international scale, with United States being the next mission. 

------

So that concludes the First Part (out of the Five available) of this book. These are the key players which have all systemically caused a great deal of damage to our nation. 

In the course of making this post, I also realised that I don't have the energy to do this for the remaining chapters. In all honesty, I am so grateful that all this FILTH was eventually uncovered and the rightful parties have been prosecuted for it. My hope is that one day Jho Low is brought to face the judicial  consequences of his actions. 

A documentary titled Man on the Run is going to be released on this, I am definitely watching it ! 

(You can watch the trailer here!)

Hope that this was insightful !