Monday 9 June 2008

It's all about saving US

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

I was shocked after reading this article.

At a G8 meeting in Japan:
On Saturday, five key energy-consuming nations, the United States, China, Japan, India and South Korea, all called on oil producers to increase output to try to control the soaring prices.
US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said: "It's not good for producing nations to see the US struggling economically. They depend on us to be a significant engine in world economic activity."
Mr Bodman said the subsidies in China and India had helped drive demand and so increase prices. "We know demand is increasing because a lot of nations are still subsidising oil, which ought to stop," he said."
The US means that it is the subsidies that increase the oil price - so stop it! If you stop the subsidies, people will not buy a lot of oil so the price will decrease (is this possible?!). It also means that your countries will suffer inflation and we, US will benefit from your inflation! That's why Venezuela (the biggest enemy of US) has the lowest oil price at the home market.

However, India & China ain't gonna submit to US demand:

India insists there is no agreement to remove the subsidies altogether.

Its representative at the talks on Saturday said the country was not ready to move to a position where the market decided the price its citizens should pay for oil.

China also made clear it had no time frame for moving towards lower subsidies, saying they needed to consider carefully how removing them might affect the country's social and political stability.

Why Malaysia has to submit to US and save their economy? Because we have floated the Ringgit currency, if US is down, we will down too (Read here to understand the impact of floating the Ringgit). Either way we will down - decrease subsidy and increase inflation or increase subsidy and destroy our currency. But I doubt the second will be worse than the first option. Anyway, the government decided to go for the first one to save US first thinking that this will save Malaysia too. I sure hope the government decision will save the poorest groups of the country. This is such a gamble.

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.

Wednesday 4 June 2008

RM2.70 per liter tomorrow, like it or not.

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,

According to the research by Merdeka Center, the biggest problem of the country is price hike and inflation(pg.8) and the Malays complained the most about this (pg.9), is the government or BN still not hear or are they deaf? The Merdeka Center reported that Pak Lah is not the reason for BN's defeat and Malays are still loyal voters to BN (go look at the report here pg.44-45), what's the problem with UMNO chanting the Malays have divided and Pak Lah should step down. No, I am not a supporter of Pak Lah but clearly the poll said that many still want Pak Lah to stay on as the PM (pg.12-16).

The problem is about price hike and inflation. Internet is not to be blamed, nor are the bloggers cos according to the poll, many disregard internet as a medium for election news (pg.22). All the factors that BN listed for their defeat in the last election are all not correct if the report by the Merdeka Center is accurate.

It is about price hike and inflation, don't you see? And you still want to raise the oil price and inflation. Wake up, for God's sake, and people's sake.

ALLAHU'alam.

Wassalam.