Pages

Friday 22 August 2008

Petrol Price Down?

Sources say the government is planning to cut the petrol price by 5.6 per cent to RM2.55 a litre.

This is with effect from Saturday - tomorrow.

5 comments:

TheWhisperer said...

Please do not politicise this reduction as Pak Lah would put it.

Just don't politicise every move they make so far. There is no truth in it.

Bah! Humbugger!! Just interpret it opposite and you ll be 100% right all the time.

Those Bastards!!

bayi said...

I am disappointed with the quantum of reduction.

On another note, I overheard a consumer in a morning market complaining to a kuih seller about the price increase of the kuih sold. Blame in on the price increase in petrol, the vendor said. Everything is influenced by the price of petrol, it seemed. The consumer pointed out that the government had given hints of an impending reduction in petrol price. No, the vendor countered. Prices of petrol can come down. But as for consumer goods, especially food, what goes up will not come down! How true!

I'll bet Badawi and his serfs didn't think of this.

Unknown said...

I thought he said there would not be a reduction til 1 Sept? Did I read wrong? He has "perfect" timing eh? The usual flip-flop one would expect .. sigh .. we REALLY need a man/woman with leadership qualities who MUST also be honest and work for the good of ALL citizens of Malaysia. Does Anwar fit the role? Sometimes we have to take the risk if we want change, I suppose. Have a good weekend, crankster!

walla said...

Mistakes made. When they decided to hike fuel price, they omitted pre-analysis of knock-on multiplier effects on other staples. For instance, fuel has strong multiplier effects on transportation and power costs which then affect everything else. They also didn't predetermine if public transport would be able to take on the influx of new passengers who would stop using their cars. And they forgot about household cash-flows, how dependent families are to use their cards to buy groceries, pay for petrol etc, and their present commitments to car loans and home mortgages.

In this situation, if the economy falls in tandem with what is happening overseas, businesses will shrink, companies will close, jobs will be lost. And it will take years to get back to the same levels of activities, by then inflation would have pushed prices up - and so income will be relatively lower. A bad deal.

Right now one suspects savings have been eaten up. In the past, some who were market-savvy made some money from the stock-market. All gone. And if interest rates are raised to stem inflation, business costs will rise which will hit growth. Again bad. Meanwhile prices in the private sector which have gone up won't come down. People should know that.

And yet we have this PM taking a photo opp from being on the train for an hour. After so long. And after so many media coverage on the shit the rakyat have been going through. And all he said was no good, immediate improve. But the MOT also quick to explain they have no jurisdiction over the private sector train operators. And the train operators also said they will only get to speed next year or 2010 because some of the carriages have been sent for repair.

So who awarded the tender, who got them, how much was paid out, how much was leaked, and was there ever careful planning for capacity increases and contingencies, and also how come the PM, MOT and operators don't talk to one another before opening mouth?

Or deciding on fuel prices.

The old and young are going to suffer all over again for the stupidity of a fifty-one year old government that's just plain incompetent.

Crankster said...

LOL guys. I tried not to politicise this move, but there is no other way of justifying why they moved the fuel subsidy to this week instead of September, as originally planned.

But as you've mentioned, the damage done is irrepairable. Inflation has skyrocketed and there's no reason for vendors to reduce prices now. Not when the amount is so minimal.