Petrol price hike

The government says subsidies cuts are necessary to maintain the livelihood, the continuity of our economy, and to improve the standard of living in Malaysia. They also say that Malaysians are paying the cheapest petrol prices in our region and targeted fuel subsidy to receive the cut! But what "they" fail to mention is that we Malaysians are also paying for the most expensive car prices in the world! What we pay in car price taxes can pay for our petrol subsidies for the lifetime of our rides.... WTF?!?!?!

Subsidies to IPPs (Independant Power Producers) should be the ones receiving the cut since their reported to profit from RM 100mil to RM1bil every year, as mentioned by Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua. Why the heck should they be receiving subsidies is beyond my understanding.

WTF are "they" doing and why is the rakyat (the people) made to pay for all the misconstrued budgets and funding, and "payments" to privatised corporations? Why are we made to "subsidise" all the funding that have gone down the drain due to over budgeted projects and mismanaged funds?

Furthermore, there are ones that imply that we, the rakyat, should look into taking public transportation to ease congestion and to reduce fuel consumption. The people's main utilisation of trasportation is to and fro work but our public transport, here in Penang, does not travel to the industrial area where the factories are located. So how are workers supposed to utilise public transportation in this scenario? Not to mention our busses are never on time and no one even knows the public bus schedule! How is the price hike justified when the people are not provided the infrastructure to cope?

p.s. I hear rumours that Penang bridge toll will also be raised, which we were promised would only be paid until the cost of the bridge construction was paid off. However, just as that date was approaching a few years back, the bridge toll was privatised and we're still paying toll to date.

Petrol price slash!

Soon and I were just out wandering the streets last night and coincidentally met up with Raymond (Golf GTi) and Calvin (Celica but was driving his GSR) near town.

Calvin's Celica started smoking around the bonnet area, with him in it looking rather cool, so we pulled into an Esso station to check things out. Calvin revealed that his radiator pipe had just cracked so water was splashing on his super hot FI block. Phew!

We filled up the radiator and reserve tank with pipe water just to get back when the Shell next door totaly shut down all its pumps and lights, but as far as we know it was a 24hr pump. Being the curious cats that we were, we went over once the lights came back on to see what had happened. The price of fuel had went down to RM1.80 for Regular and just slightly above RM2 for V-Power.

But the amazing thing was that Esso was still selling at RM1.90 up till around 1am. Haiz... The coy industrialist in us all....

p.s. Calvin got home safely and is installing Samco's today :)

Abnormally quiet!

I thought I'd just like to post up a bump since its been so long since any activities were carried out and social activities are grinding to a halt. I guess most are still trying to recover from the petrol price increase thus affecting all other amenities in every aspect of our lives. There has not been a touge in almost a week now, and nightly outings are scarce if not few. We are conforming more and more to routine life as we know it.. Wake up, work, get off work, go to bed... Repeat and repeat and repeat...

I read some bad news stating that the rebate is only a one time deal. We're rebated only ONCE, and in light of the current economic situation... Sad to say that many families will suffer and the need to tighten up our already constricting belts would cause much distress. I certainly hope there would not be another increase of fuel prices, which seems imminent. Haih... Time to quote my fav. sad-ness phrase... DOWN-loh!!!

Well, I guess my investing in a home entertainment system a few months back, at the cost of getting an e-manage installed in my Silver Banana, was the right choice eh?

One-off increase, why do it twice?

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad was found mentioning his justification for the one-off price increase of fuel.

In justifying the 78 sen per litre increase for petrol, Shahrir said the amount was the second choice.

“It was either 50 sen, 78 sen or RM1. Initially it was RM1, but then we decided that rather than placing it at 50 sen and then increasing it later, we would just stick to a one-off increase.

“Why do something twice when it can be implemented once?” he asked.
-source The Star

I find this a rather hypocritical albeit pretentious statement, seeing that the reason for the import tax on automobiles have to be slowly reduced so as to not impact the citizens (while protecting a certain manufacturer) resale value whilst the fuel prices had to be raised all at once so that they don't have to come up off their comfy fat asses to ammend the implementation again!

Now how would this sudden increase of 78cents fare for the low-mid income earners that are already making ends meet, and being raised right after the price hike of rice!

Fuel price comparison.

I got this mail from a colleague... See how we compare to the worldwide prices! Sheesh!!!

And we ARE a fuel producing country... The shame!

Of fuel, monkeys and ministers

I was about to leave the office last night and decided to do a final check on the fuel hike rumours I'd been getting SMS'd the whole day.

I went online to Malaysiakini and its reported that the price of fuel will rise to RM2.70
Even NST had reported this price hike for fuel!

Then it hit me that millions of lemmings living all around will be rushing for a refuel causing massive jams and super long waits in traffic. Is the savings you get per tank worth all the danger and angst you have to put up with? Sheesh!!!

Anyways, further reading was in order and I'd gone through a lot of articles and finally saw this in a forum. I like this dude for saying, in my own summation, "If the gov expects the rakyat (citizen) to pay real world price for fuel, they should also pay real world price for cars, not the artificially high price as is!" Damn it! We're already paying for more than the subsidised petrol up front! The public is paying for it like buying raffles for charity... Without hopes of return!!!

It is not the price of fuel that scares me, it's the repercussions that it brings with it. Imagine food costs increase (major concern), household items raised through the roof, and everyday needs unaffordable to the laymen.

There had been talks of the subsidy program which is unlikely to kick off anytime soon since no system nor framework had even been DECIDED upon, let alone constructed. Or they're being very coy and discreet about it seeing that no form of media had firm data to present at present.

With the removal of the petrol subsidy, the gov's excuse was that other countries are paying international prices whilst we enjoy the subsidised rate. What they fail to see is that other countries have the option of public transport and superb facilitation for their "rakyat"s ease of mobility. We on the other hand have hot and stuffy busses, improperly maintained taxis, bad mannered drivers, and it goes without mention... Their schedules are just USELESS!!!

How will the gov make up for this increase in LIVING COST? Are they just trying to milk their cash cows (us, the "rakyat") dry? Or had they been in office for way too many terms and just trying to make their way out from national affairs???

The gov cannot afford fuel subsidy but can afford a RM 100Mil project to renovate the Parliament building (which leaked thereafter), RM 40Mil to send a monkey into space and dub him "Angkasawan", multiple billions more ringgit bailing out "certain" companies of "interest", and all our Ministers are pottering around in luxurious German automobiles and spending lavishly!

Bullshit I say!!!

Feel free to drop me any views.