Comments on: You can’t even tell the government that prices are high!

By: limkamput

limkamput — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:10:25 +0000

megaman, spread the words around. Yes i agree, sometimes we are so busy earning a living, we hardly have time to reflect. The lower the wages, the harder we work and the lesser time we have to think over who are stealing from us!

By: cheng on soo

cheng on soo — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:57:52 +0000

Msia car price is among the highest in the world! many ppl need to buy one as public transport is generally bad.

By: megaman

megaman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:17:24 +0000

Hi Limkamput,

Totally agree with you on your analysis. However, how many are enlightened enough to see the same points ?

By: Man_of_Honour

Man_of_Honour — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:24:03 +0000

Digi, “Time to Change”..

2% inflation is based on only 2 comodities wey…

BN smart ass are real good on their maths… No wonder our taxpayers money goes missing so easily!

By: iggy

iggy — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:50:43 +0000

PM LIED about the competitiveness ranking of our country!!
His latest efforts to bolster support for BN!

http://www.imd.ch/research/publications/wcy/upload/scoreboard.pdf

PLEASE EXPOSE THIS TO THE NATION!

By: Godfather

Godfather — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:29:51 +0000

I think the correct statement should be “We have a disfunctioning market economy…” It is run by a guy who doesn’t know what economics is all about. He is prepped up by a bunch of “unseen” hands who also do not know what economics is all about. The art of stealing has nothing to do with economics.

By: limkamput

limkamput — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:18:25 +0000

Sorry, first line, “We have a functioning market economy…..

By: limkamput

limkamput — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:15:25 +0000

We a functioning market economy, but we never want to let it works. Instead we continue to intervene the market excessively. Almost all the damn things in the country are regulated one way or another, from flour, rice, sugar, chicken, bread, to cars, cement and steel. Just look at the myriad of instruments used - import permits, approved permits, anti hoarding, sale regulation, licensing, and price control. More recently we even want to set up a stockpile for essential goods. Is this how the market economy works? We should have allowed freer and more competition and the prices will generally take care of themselves. Instead, the government thinks it can control every damn thing. This was what the communists did and I guess the consequence is well known to everybody except to that bunch of idiots running the Malaysian economy today. The more we control, the more market distortions, rent seeking and corruption would creep in, which in turn will further affect the ordinary functioning of the market economy.

The government is artificially suppressing CPI to cap the wage levels. People have genuine concern because wages are not able to keep pace with cost of living. Let me show you an example on fuel price which the government has always harped on it as if they have done us a great favour. A litre of so-called subsidised petrol in Malaysia is RM1.92. In Australia it is about A$1.20 (end November 2007). Now, converting the price using the official exchange rate, the government will claim that the price of petrol in Australia is much more expensive than Malaysia and therefore Malaysians should be thankful. But we forget, the people in Australia earn wages in A$ just like the way Malaysians earn ringgit in Malaysia. The starting annual pay of a graduate in Australia is A$30,000. Now what is starting pay of a graduate in Malaysia? May be RM24,000. So if a litre of petrol is A1.20 in Australia and RM1.92 in Malaysia, who actually has lower cost of living? We donâ€™t compare prices using official exchange rates. We compare prices vis-Ã -vis per capita income also. Fair enough I have not factored in the differences in marginal tax rates.

I am not comparing with Singapore because Singapore has a very different policy of car ownership. But donâ€™t forget, Singapore has an impeccable public transportation system second to none. In any case, the price of petrol in Singapore is not high to Singaporeans who earn S$. One more point, Australia and Singapore are not oil producers. Malaysia boleh my foot.

By: alaneth

alaneth — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:45:55 +0000

Frankly, I don’t bother if our prices are high.

Remember KL (Malaysia) came last in the Ranking of World’s most expensive cities???

This also means our wages/salary are low.

Fresh engineer grads in Malaysia are getting RM 2000/month since 1990!!! no change although price go up.

Compare Singapore year 2000 - S$2300, 2007 - S$2700.

But for me businessman, I prefer to pay low salary lar…. High price means I can markup my goods also…

But I an a staunch DAP ally. Vote DAP!!!