Rich Snail

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The news came in 2 days ago. The government abruptly raised the price of subsidised fuel by 40%. This measure was in the “pipeline” for quite some time and recently became necessary to offset the high oil price cost to the public purse.

This lead to horrible traffic jam that same evening as many Malaysians were trying to fill up their tank to enjoy the last remnant of a 1.92RM / liter gas price. Many lost a few hours in the process to save a few Ringgits. I can understand this reaction from lower-class Malaysians who live on less than RM1,000 per month. But I was surprised to see the kind of reactions in Bangsar and Damansara Heights, with many BMW and Benz lining up. Seeing these reactions I smiled remembering the concept of Homo-Economicus…

The ruckus started the following day. Many (Shall i say all?) are really unhappy about the price increase and the way the government handled this situation.Some will complain about the new price. To those I would remind them that those subsidies are reckoned to cost about as much as defence, education and health care - combined!

If I were to have a say, I would give priority to education and health care over petrol subsidy any time of the day! Let’s hope this increase will benefit those two sectors down the road…

Others took a step back and put things into perspective. They started opening again the pandora’s box of the last elections. Ho wealth has been managed or many will say mismanaged in the country. I think this is the right debate to have !