Rant & Raves

Most of you should know about that effective 0000 (that’s 12am) today, our RON92 petrol price has increased from RM1.92 per liter to RM2.70 per liter. That’s a 78 cents (or roughly 40.63%) increase per liter, mind you. If you don’t, you most probably come from some jungle-village so please head to The Star to read the news.

Now, I am not an Economist, but it is safe to bet all my money plus the future one that I am going to make to bet that most citizens of the country will be affected by this petrol price increase.

When petrol price increase, the transportation/shipping/distribution price increase. When transportation/shipping/distribution price increase, the raw material price increase and operation cost increase (hey! The boss needs to pump petrol to go to work, okay?!). When raw material price increase and operation cost increase, the product retail price increase.

Unfortunately, our salary do not seem to increase.

So with price of almost everything increase, and the people are strap with the same income, how could the people not affected?

He reiterated that the public should make changes to their lifestyle, saying they must ensure there was no wastage in resources such as water, energy and food. - The Star on Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi about petrol price increase

Genius. Pure genius.

Instead of one big bowl of noodle, we should all order the small one and get hungry for the rest of the afternoon. Hey! That way we can be on diet as well! Woohoo! One stone two birds! Oh and since the food price will increase, we should start having a small farm in our house to plant vegetables and herd some chickens or pigs. That way we can harvest our own food, and cook them using candles or some dry woods from the forest. If not, we can always eat those food raw! Now that’s creative thinking, isn’t it?

How about we trade in our car for a bicycle? Now we get to work out daily when we go to work and going home after work, and we do not have to pump the blardy petrol anymore! But the price of bicycle would most probably increase as well, so we should all start walking! Yes! Walk to work/school, and walk to the shopping mall during weekend! Another one-stone-two-birds idea! Now this is a scene you most probably won’t see too often: a human walking line jam to the shopping mall! Another plus point would be we have to wake up 4 hours earlier to get ready to work, and not to mention that we can get killed on the road easily. Now isn’t life great?

By this rate of changing our lifestyle, we will be back to primeval period in no time.

Now, I am not objecting to the petrol price increase. In fact, I support this move by Abdullah Badawi (I just disagree with his super smart statement about us changing our lifestyle to accommodate the petrol price increase). Removing the petrol subsidy will remove a lot of financial strain on the gahmen and that will allow the gahmen to spend those savings wisely on improving the country. If the gahmen do use the money wisely instead of abusing it, like corruption and all that bullshit, I will support this move hands down, no question asked.

Then the money should be spent on improving public transport. If anyone dare to say that our public transport system is world class, I would say that this person has never ventured out of Malaysia before. So please, improve the public transport system so that more people can use it, hence reducing the traffic on the road.

And with reduced traffic on the road, that would ease up the traffic jam. Common sense is that our car consume the most petrol during the start-stop traffic jam situation. With the eased traffic condition, then we are not wasting the petrol. It’s best to review the road system as well as most of the time, it’s those small junctions that caused the traffic build-up, so you can consider revamping the road system, expanding the junctions, removing some fucking idiotic traffic lights, and also, why not follow Singapore and spend the savings in petrol subsidy to install Smart Tag on all Malaysian car? Hey, its expensive, but its a one time thing. With everyone having a Smart Tag, we don’t have to stop at the toll gate (or best yet, remove the fucking toll gate!) and then no one would want to smash our car window to steal the Smart Tag.

And then, remove the import duty for foreign car. If you want Proton to be competitive, remove the protection and let them fight for their survival. Only the strong can survive and if they are not fit, why waste the taxpayers money to protect a bastard child like Proton? When people can afford good car without paying those hefty tax, imagine the savings we have in long run. Instead of paying RM171,800 for a brand new Honda Accord 2.4, we have to pay, let’s say, RM95,000 and that, my friend, is already a RM76,800 saving and that’s a big freaking difference.

The reason why I am suggesting all these is because we are not going to get a pay raise. Let me give you a scenario: the average Singaporeans are paid SGD2000 per month (salary) and we are paid RM2000 salary. But when they only spend SGD1.67 per liter for petrol, and we have to pay RM2.70 per liter, do you see how much more we have to spend? If you convert the currency, our petrol is still cheaper, but to compare orange to orange, don’t convert! How about other stuff like fast food? It’s the same thing! We are not getting paid more, yet we are paying the same as them. So go figure if the people of Malaysia are not going to be affected big time by this petrol price increase.

I hope the gahmen people can stop hiding inside their nice chamber (or office, or house, or palace if you like) and come out from their hiding to meet the people, to understand how the people are living. Drafting the policies closed-door without understanding the life of people is plain ignorant, and its like asking someone who doesn’t drive to draft out a traffic law.

We are not asking you to halt the petrol price increase, but merely asking you to be considerate enough to understand the difficulties that we have to face in life. Remove some of the hefty taxes, make our road more traffic friendly, and make our life easier.

And that’s all we are asking for.

Updated: 06/06/2008

Found this and uploaded to YouTube.