Sunday, July 18, 2010

We're gonna pay more for everything

The subsidy rationalization was put forth by Datuk Seri Idris Jala. According to him, the country would become bankrupt by 2019 say the government debt continued to grow by 12% per year. (Yet to be verified)

The cut finally phased in last week. It came as a surprise too because there was no related public announcement made, well may be there was but the coverage was kind of limited I suppose. Prices of commodities such as petrol, diesel, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and sugar have gone up. It is a rather marginal increase I believe as many have yet felt the pinch of the price hike.

Yea I can't agree more with subsidy rationalization. It is necessitated as the global prices of commodities continue to soar due to increasingly higher demand to fuel for development and industrialization. If the national commodities prices are to be maintained unchange, the government will have to fork out unprecedentedly huge sum of money to offset the increase in global prices of commodities, up to an extent that the government's expenditure goes beyond the government's revenue (tax), the country will sustain deficit and eventually go bankrupt.

So, subsidy cut should be in place. Consequently, we are going to have to pay more for almost everything, from transportation, to food and beverage, goods and services and even the properties. The cost of living will inevitably go up further. If it is not implementated systematically and timely, the general public is going to face huge pressure of living while the underpriviledged groups will face an especially hard time. They may be so frustrated that they go on strike, carry out demonstation, commit crimes, and so on to get extra money, release tension or whatever. All these will cause instability in the national security and thus affect the country's economy and even politics because they all are interrelated. Therefore, cutting subsidy may be a bad move if it's not done well.

I hope our government is dependable and capable of laying out a sound subsidy rationalization plan and be very vigilant and effective with the implementation. The money saved should be used wisely. There should also be reasonable relief programs to facilitate the various groups to weather the price hike. Companies should also revise their wages for their employees. I believe it will set the country in better position to move forward or probably achieve the vision 2o20 (in the best case senario).

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