Living hand to mouth

The great government of Malaysia today announced one of the biggest increases in fuel prices ever known in all our 50 years of independence.

For a oil and gas exporting country, we will now be paying RM2.70 for petrol (a 78 cents jumps from RM1.92) and RM2.58 for diesel (a RM1 jumps from RM1.58).

All these hikes have come mostly since our great prime minister of Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took power. I have personally met this great man and personally been to his home in Kepala Batas... I thought him to be a nice and quiet man.

Image and graph is courtesy of Malaysiakini

At the same time, the great man and the great Barisan Nasional government also announced an increase in electric tariffs.

I think although I wanted to keep personalities, politics and religion out of my blog, this affects me directly and more so a lot of my friends and family members who live hand to mouth, who need to work hard for a living, who need to drive because out wonderful public transportation system is just great and among the top in the world (I am being sarcastic here for you first time readers).

I used a environmentally friendly EU approved diesel engine car which I fuel up once a week and used to spend roughly RM360 to RM400 a month to fuel up. Now, after the increase, I calculate the cost to go up to RM588 to RM653, that is a jump of nearly RM250 a month which comes up to more than RM8 a day. That is pretty much how much I spent on 2 out of my 3 meals a day.

The fuel price is expected to go up further. I guess when that happens, I will be feeding my car rather than feeding myself.

What will happen in this chain reaction is that everything will go up, and it will go up significantly and it will go up fast. A forty to sixty percent hike in fuel means a forty to sixty percent hike in pretty much everything except of course salaries.

If employee were to plead with their employers to give them a salary hike, it will become not competitive for a lot of the employers to remain in business. This would mean that a lot of foreign investment to this country will just move to cheaper countries like India and China and elsewhere and a lot of local business may actually close down.

This would mean more people looking for jobs, and if you are lucky and rich, it would mean that you could migrate out of this god forsaken place and at least make a better living in another country.

I have not completed my rantings and will continue within this blog or part two. However, the price hike is going to make it difficult for many people, for many Malaysians alike and while our great PM is hoping there will be no protests and public demonstrations, he is pretty much asking for it and I think there will be protests and demonstrations and there should be. We are a peaceful nation, nothing wrong with some protests from the people whether it is through blogs, through letters, through any peaceful means.

I usually like to end or write my blog with positive quotes and things like that, but today, I would like to end with an sms I received from a friends of mine in response to the hike which brought a smile to my face because I would have never expected such a sms from this person.

"BN is fucking cruel. Badawakwi and KJ should go to Hell!"

Take care and be well.