Not Again!!!!!!

There's a reason why this country will not be able to survive the future. Guess!

I'm Back!

Well got back from BTN yesterday, all in one peace. Though a few aches here and there. I would say it was an "interesting" experience. I cannot divulge more info than that. Contact me personally for more

Going Off to BTN!

I'll be going off to BTN for a whole week. It's pretty stupid really. Anyway, I'll miss wife horribly :( and I don't think I'll have access to the internet. So be seeing you next week. If anything bad happens to me in BTN, please sue them for me ya!

Cya.

How to Reach Your PM

There are a couple of options if you want to contact our PM through websites:

1) You can go to his office website at www.pmo.gov.my



or alternatively,

2) You can reach him through www.warkahuntukpm.com.my



Wait a minute, both are under construction. Too bad I wanted to share with him my thoughts on the new fuel subsidies. By the way, I wonder who got the contract for the construction?

Petrol to be RM2.70/litre

My prediction is slightly off by 2 months. It seems the government took the hard step of increasing fuel prices at pump immediately beginning midnight. Petrol at RM2.70 means the government is still subsidizing the price at around RM0.30-0.50 as of now. Other than that it seems other subsidies such as gas and electricity shall be slowly reduce. I applause the government brave action in pulling back these subsidies. One thing lacking is that rather than a sudden increase in price there should be a clear policy in reducing fuel subsidies within a time frame of 3-5 years and gas subsidies between 7-10 years.

The immediate impact of the increase on the consumer would be psychological in nature. Seeing that we have been content in living with subsidies. The government have to effectively explain to the people on the street why such an increase is essential to save the nation economy. My fear now would be a civil unrest and people taking to the street their dissatisfaction. Already tonight I noticed a certain sense of chaos with people queuing up for fuels. I'm sure there would be pent up frustration and hopefully such feelings can be contained. A civil unrest and riots would be disastrous at such moment. This would be detrimental to the country's peace and economic health.



Cars queuing up for fuel [picture by my lovely wife :)]

By now, people would have started to compare the fuel at pump between oil exporting nation with that of Malaysia, and rest assured that the prices of fuel at these countries can be unimaginably low. But like all things, not all examples are good. The nation that subsidised so much of their oil will eventually have to bear the negative effect in the future. Our children, and their children will eventually live in a world with no natural resources what so ever due to our wastages now.

Let me remind you again that subsidies like the fuel subsidy reduces the efficiency of a market, it will produce wastages by consumer and never actually meet it's economic target of helping the poor.

Rather than looking at the bleak picture, now is the time for us to be more creative in dealing with daily difficulties. We can now focus the savings we made from our subsidies reduction to areas that can be beneficial in the long run. Subsiding health and education seems to be one of a long term solutions that can actually increase not only the quality of life for the citizen but bring about a better society.

On a more personal level, maybe it's time for us to look at a bus map and plan our journey to the office tomorrow. Or maybe we can advertised in our office and find a car pool mates. In a long term solution maybe we can find a place to stay nearer to the office or near public transport routes.

I hope tonight we can take a moment and reflect on this situation and give thanks to God for giving us some common sense to look further in the future to the needs of our next generation.

Subsidies Reduction

With crude oil prices passing the USD130.00 mark, the Malaysian government have no choice but to reduce subsidies by increasing prices of essentials and commodities. Though an unpopular move by the government, it is only by reducing subsidies can wastages be stop. It's basic economics.

Recently the prices of iron have been uncapped by the government, thus ensuring more or less an open market pricing mechanism that would immediately increase the price of iron. Most contractors and developers welcome such moves since it will reduce the dependency on iron black market. Though there will be an increase of prices in future development, I would say it'll properly adjust itself in the future by lessing demands. Hopefully there will be an increase in efficiency in the metal industries, by players merging their resources or sharing their facilities to lower production costs. And developers can be more ingenuous by exploring development techniques that'll reduce cost and shorten construction works. Of concern, is the middle and low cost houses. Unfortunately, for the immediate future, cross subsidies by developers or even direct subsidies by government have to be taken to ensure a reasonably priced homes be offered to the poor. A transparent and equitable purchasing system have to be setup so that only the truly deserving can purchase the homes.

While at the same time, rice prices have been set at certain ceiling depending on the quality of rice on retail. While special rices such as basmati, herbaponi have been uncapped. Though unfortunate that the government have to provide rice subsidies, it is important that the people nutritional needs are taken care of. Anything lesser than, the country might face a civil unrest.

And now,most probably in August the government is going to present a new oil subsidy scheme to tackle the rising price of global oil. I would provide a wild guess that the adjusted price at pump would be around RM2.50-RM3.00 per litre. While subsidies fuel would either be maintained at current price or increased slightly to RM1.95-RM2.00 per litre. This would probably be applied for the lesser grade fuel (RON 93/95). There would probably be no more subsidies for the higher grade fuel (RON 97/99), thus making the price roughly around RM4.00 per litre. Though this is just baseless assumption, mind you.

Of course, cost of living will increase and thus inflation will increase. People will feel more burden on their shoulder while their ringgit are stretch to its very limit. Hopefully, all this savings from the reduction of fuel subsidies will go to lower other cost such as lowering car and income taxes at the federal level. While the state might be able to reduce land and assessment taxes. This will go along way in reducing the burden of the people.