Minyak Kereta

http://myfinancialthoughts.com/2009/09/10/ron-95-and-ron-97-and-fuel-hike/

Recently the government introduced RON 95 fuel to the mass market, which in some way upgraded the RON 97 we’ve been using all this while to a ‘premium’ fuel, and made it more expensive. I’m not sure what was the official announced reason for this but if I’m not mistaken, it was meant to lessen the people’s burden taking into considerations the rising oil price at that time. Some might have the perception that we are using a lower quality fuel right now since the number at the nozzle is lower and it’s cheaper, so it must be of lower quality isn’t it? Wrong. At least in my limited knowledge of the oil industry. The cheaper fuel doesn’t necessarily translate into lower performance, it doesn’t reduce your fuel efficiency, and alas, it doesn’t provide less power for the Kancil Turbo we often find overtaking the Camry and Accord (to a certain extent the 3 series and C-Class) on Malaysian highways. So yes 2-litre car owners, you’ll still be staring at the Kancil’s behind.

Anyway, back to the people’s perception. As I’ve mentioned earlier, it is not of a lower quality. It’s just something to do with something which I couldn’t effectively make you understand here or anywhere else for that matter. Please consult someone with an Engineering degree or someone from Shell or Exxon (you know who you are). According to Wikipedia here, most parts of the world use the RON 95 or lower as their regular fuel, any higher would be premium fuel or in layman’s term, expensive fuel. Do you know what does this mean? The fuel that we used before was the expensive one!! Damn government. This amounts to daylight robbery! Why didn’t they just give us the cheap fuel since day 1? Didn’t they expect people would be mad at them? I don’t know, maybe they have a reason for that, valid or not, justified or not, you have to go ask them yourself. I don’t know.

That was just the introduction. Just to let you know that we were paying a relatively low price for our fuel considering its ‘premium’ (maybe not if you also take into account the thickness of your pockets).

I want to pose a question to all of the bright economist out there, yes that includes you Dann, is the fuel subsidy justified? I can recall my A Level Economics teacher, Mr Jamal (who apparently just opened up a Facebook account here) announced to the class that fuel subsidy is bad. Why you might ask. Fuel subsidy is pretty much similar to regressive tax. The government is paying more for those who consume more ie; well-off people who can afford the 4.5l Cayenne, and not those who only use the 1.6l Satria Neo. Take for example a Cayenne, they use RM500/month for fuel and a Satria who only uses RM200/month. Yes the Cayenne’s owner pay more, but the government is also paying more for them. Say the subsidy is 20% from the selling price, that would mean the government is paying RM100 per month for the Cayenne and a puny RM40 for the Satria, those who need it the most. Now you can see how, in Malaysia, being rich makes you richer and being poor makes you poorer (corruption and cronyism isn’t part of today’s discussion).

By lifting the fuel subsidy, the government was actually doing justice for the people but of course we saw there was a huge protest about it. Although it was economically right, but not so populist and if we want to find fault, we can find it even here such as where would the saved money be spent and so on. Anyway, this is not to defend nor to blame the government, it’s just to satisfy my curiousity.

ps: This might be provide better and further explanation http://welkerswikinomics.com/blog/2009/09/29/letting-markets-work-the-malaysia-fuel-subsidy-goes-bye-bye/

Big and bigger pictures

I saw a few comments on facebook, blogs and other sites expressing disappointment. They say UMNO this, Najib that, Malaysia sucks, I want to migrate, something along those lines. I decided to join the bandwagon.

I’m disappointed with those who only look at one side of the coin, and when they do look at the bigger picture, they decided to ignore the other side’s argument. In other word, bias. As well as selfish if I do not know more.

Take Sultan Azlan Shah’s recent call on judges to be impartial and apolitical. Some commenters on The Malaysian Insider think that His Highness wasn’t being apolitical when he should have been by appointing Zambry as Perak MB. To be honest, I really don’t know whether he was indeed being apolitical or not when appointing Zambry, but to use that as an argument to say he was taking sides is, I think, pretty ridiculous. First and foremost, it is his prerogative to refuse Nizar’s call for dissolution of assembly, and when the king does that, the MB shall resign. If I’m not mistaken, the Perak constitution says “should the King refuse to dissolve the assembly, the Chief Minister shall resign”. I’m no law expert, but to me that sounds pretty much like Nizar has to resign. Although it doesn’t state what would happen if he didn’t. If it’s up to me, I would also look for an alternative to Nizar as MB and I’ll appoint him. It’s that simple. But then again, I might be wrong. Anyway, what I wrote there showed that Sultan Azlan Shah was just being rational and not that he took sides. People might forget that right after the March election there was still no Pakatan Rakyat. Even now, I think PR is still not an official party but only a coalition between PKR, DAP and PAS. Anyway, looking at the results, BN was the party who held the majority at the time and should have ruled the state. But no, Sultan Azlan Shah told them to wait because he heard those three parties were forming a coalition, and if they did, they would be the majority in the assembly. So they did and the coalition was formed as PR, and that’s it. Sultan Azlan Shah then appointed Nizar as the MB to head the “mixed government” and rule Perak. UMNO people could’ve said that His Higness was taking sides but again, I think he was just being practical.

Another point in hand is the PPSMI. Some who claim as the Malay language heroes fought PPSMI like there’s no tomorrow, claiming that it will kill the national language. Success followed. They must be happy now that the national language survives the horrific policy. Although I also do not agree with Maths and Science being taught in English in primary school, but I would heavily agree if it is only done in secondary school (at least for the time being). Those 7-year olds in some rural areas might not even know what addition or multiplication are, what more asymptotes or domain theories. Even some adults do not know them. At least when the reach the age of thirteen, they could understand easier the meaning of the word domain in mathematics. Anyway, back to the so-called fighters. Why did they not fight against vernacular schools? SRJK does not use the national language at all apart from the learning of the language itself. Isn’t that would a far greater threat to the Malaysian language than PPSMI? As far as I have great great respect to A. Samad Said and Prof Ungku Aziz, I think they were picky in choosing what they want to fight. Men of their calibre could have easily fought for one type of school like the one Mukhriz put forth recently but came short of any media publisity.

Anyway, my point is, please look at the bigger picture. My picture might not be the biggest, but I think is bigger than some.

Mr Lim, I’m confused

Lim Kit Siang said that the Penanti by-election was, yet again, a referendum to Najib’s administration (read here). He then calls for a policy review by the Prime Minister.

The first time I read this news, I went “not again!” Can we not call it a referendum whenever BN lost? So if BN wins in one of the by-elections later on, does it count as support for Dato’ Seri Najib? Therefore, people at Batang Ai supports him? Or, why not we call the Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn the High Court a referendum as well? So it seems that the Court of Appeal supports the federal government and the high Court supports the federal opposition. After all, judges are voters too.

The other thing I’m confused is, if the voters really did vote for Dr Mansor because they do not approve of Najib’s administration, I really don’t get where they are going. It is, after all, a state seat. No matter who wins, the federal government would not change. Why not call it a referendum of support for Lim Guan Eng’s administration? Maybe they think he is doing a really good job in Penang, better than Koh Tsu Koon maybe?

Maybe the voters wanted a Malay DCM and they prefer Dr Mansor as the DCM compared to the other two Malay assemblymen from the state government.

Maybe simply because the voters think that Dr Mansor was indeed the best compare to the other candidates.

This are all speculations. For the truth, you have to ask the people in Penanti. Maybe you would be surprised by the answers, or not.