Oil Price Hike: Where Will We Be?

DCA Minister Shafie Apdal said on Thursday that an oil price hike is imminent given the fact that the latest crude oil prices has spiked up to $90 per barrel, given of the demand by the U.S in facing its winter season and the current face off between the Turks and the renegade Kurds at the border town of Turkey-Iraq.

This will be the fourth time in four years in the Abdullah Badawi administration that the government has raised the price of oil given the fact that the amount of subsidies forked out by Petronas and the government themselves ballooned according to the latest price of crude oil. To most of us, it means more money has to be forked out for food and transportation, the core two needs that a working man will have to pay out for. There is also a possibility, according to Petronas CEO Hassan Merican that Malaysia could be a net importer of oil by 2010 if the demand of oil increases 4 percent each year until 2010.

A Malaysiakini comment has clearly spelt out of what is to be expected in the next six months. Just be prepared for the worst has come. Secondly, with this scenario, the possibility of throwing general elections to stop Anwar Ibrahim, particularly cannot be done by this year itself.

A question is borne out of this scenario: with the price of oil going up, which are path we going to pick? The path of the common man, or the path towards better quality of living?

The Common Man's Path

To a common working-class man working in Malaysia, fuel hike means had to squeeze some more of necessity usage for use of food and transportation. And this can be a domino effect to their daily routine. Eventually it would builds up to creating more stress and tension to a person so much, if uncontrolled, it could destroy what is inside of a human being.

Just imagine, had the price of fuel remain at the price of before 2002, people do not have to pay that much to enjoy a bowl of noodles, regardless of anywhere we stay in Malaysia. Let's say back in 1999, the price of a bowl of noodles is at $2.80, in 2008, the price could be at $3.80 or so. The inflation rate is $1.00 per 10 years. Right now, just imagine what can you do if you can save $1.00 out of the price above? You can use it for other purposes such as accumulated savings for future use or something else you can name for yourself.

Some may blame the price hike of oil at oil players like those at Haliburton, NYME and investors for being greedy and speculative. You can say that those big fat rich men enjoyed the riches after playing the mercantile market, reaping the big profits while the others suffer. Are we going to result to being Mr. Payback, a vigilante fighting for a common man or calling for Michael Moore to save the day? Elite capitalism?

Back to the Malaysian context, the ex-journalist whom I met at Hari Raya Open House the other day pointed fingers at Mohamad Yackop for the problems of limited growth of Malaysia economy. He accused the government for not being proactive in improving the economy, saying that the progress was hampered by some ridiculous policies especially the NEP. He also poked a question at Yackop himself: The Sing dollar value is 2.3 times more than the ringgit, which is about 22% undervalued than the value before the pre-Asian financial crisis but worth 1.5 against the dollar. Why has no effort be done to strengthened the ringgit? The ringgit should be at $2.92 against the dollar right now (in his words) And Yackop's answer was just one line: Let the market decide.

To him, it was an answer that he could not accept. A common man would be convinced that having a strong ringgit would reduce the cost of imports of various products, including oil. Coupled with reduced tariffs - sure, I would be spending $263 against $302 to buy a barrel of oil. Imagine the amount of savings per barrel, $40! I can use $40 for other things....!

The next person he poked at is Shafie Apdal with another question, why all things go up but nothing has gone down? Shouldn't there be a review of price for people to enjoy? Shafie never answered the question..to his disappointment.

Well, looking at the common man's perspective has many points, and the conclusion is that the government's failure to go more proactive approach in improving the economy, not relying on FDI and Economic Corridors and other things is dragging the people's feet down.

But have you look at the other side of the coin?

The Path of Better Quality of Living

I had a dinner chat with a schoolmate of mine during my secondary school days yesterday over this matter, and he seems to prove a point, with an aim to help people going towards a better quality of life, in terms of how society progresses into a better one, in context of reaching the Vision 2020 goal.

Have we look at how Singapore people had a higher quality of living than we do? If yes, the answer is because that the government is constantly encouraging them to stand on both of their feet. Sadly, this is what many people are unaware of: the government is trying to get them not to rely on them any much longer. The truth is subsidies, when viewed at a long run can be a crutch, shortcut that people would cling on. Imagine the amount of subsidies, if taken off can be used to other things for development. For example, according to my friend who stayed in UK for four months, the card machine there still uses a magnetic stripe card, whereas in Malaysia, we have the privilege of using a chip-based card. At least a billion ringgit has been spent for the financial sector as to improve productivity in financial services...with unused subsidies!

Perhaps this also encourages people to be more aggressive in achieving success in business without assistance. You see that almost every Singaporean at least owns a high-end level of a car and at least an apartment on their own, without government assistance to help them. This is because of that methodology that their government introduced...self-sufficient, self-reliance to achieve better good.

Inevitably, prices go up and up and it never goes down at all. Let's take a look comparing the price in 1993 and as of now. Sure, it went up, but what is the probability or a better question, how many occasions do we see prices going down? I mean, we are talking of consumerism here!

Now, in the current situation, is Malaysia prepared to take better path of living or merely sticking back to the common man's path? It seems that given the population status and average of amount they earn, we are still clinging onto the common man's path.

Training Day - The Inspiration Behind The Iraq Invasion

Two days ago, I stumbled upon the published screenplay of Training Day by writer David Ayer (SWAT, Dark Blue). The draft is the shooting draft which includes deleted scenes excised from the final cut including the alternate ending of the film. You can check the shooting draft of the film here.

Before we go on, let me go through briefly the premise of film:

Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) is a rookie cop who is out to make a cut as a detective in LAPD's Narcotics Division. On this training day, he was assigned to be the understudy of veteran head Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), whose methods of law enforcement are being under question. Harris methods has landed Hoyt into various problems including being framed for a murder, being a central character of a corruption scandal within the LAPD. Soon, he began to witness the dark, corrupt side of Harris which he must try to solve various twists and turns to solve a puzzle.

Much of the premise was written based on the 1998 Rampart Scandal involving disgraced office Rafael Perez. Hence, Washington based his character on Perez himself. If you look at some of the scenes of both cops beating up and arresting gang members only to have Alonzo letting them go and under his thumb, you can see this was how it culminates to Perez's testimonial of the Rampart Scandal. People in Los Angeles began to call the 70 groups of CRASH - Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums - the worst gang compared to the LA street gangs themselves. Following the scandal, CRASH was disbanded by then L.A.P.D head Bernard Parks.

It was only then I later found out that much of the metaphors of the script written by Ayer served as parallels that the White House would use in its official stance behind the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Here is a summary of the metaphors written by Mark Kelly, a PhD candidate of philosophy of The University of Sydney :

1. Film: Jake Hoyt is a naive rookie who aspires to reach success and assumes that his methods and his contributions will help to make the community safe. On the training day, he helps Alonzo to patrol the streets of L.A from narcotics. On certain occasions, he played into the hands of Alonzo in his naivety.
Real Life: America's current aim is to spread its intention of peace using its own forthrightness, spreading its own doctrine and subversion to the entire world. During the 80s, America had come to work and helped Iraq to stop the Iranian Islamic Fundamentalism. But secretly, America had allowed Saddam to invade Kuwait and started the Gulf War.

2. Film: Alonzo is king of his neighborhood, but he was hated in secret by everyone.
Real Life: Saddam Hussein is president of Iraq but every Iraqis hated him in secret.

3. Film: Hoyt was nearly killed by Smiley (Cliff Curtis) and his gang in the bathroom but his forthrightness through saving Smiley's cousin who was gang-raped earlier of the day spared him and earned Smiley's gratitude. That allowed him to go out and hunt down Alonzo later.
Real Life: America was nearly destroyed by the 9/11 attacks, but the right-wing American government had a moral fortitude of going to Iraq and eliminating Saddam fearing that it has WMDs. In the end, the government was accused of lying to the people by fabricating the fact that Iraq has WMDs.

4. Film: Nobody helped Alonzo during the final stand-off. Not even his own children or the neighborhood. Even the gangs did not do what he said. Hoyt had earned his respect of the neighborhood.
Real Life: When the Iraqis learned that the U.S military was in Baghdad to remove Saddam Hussein from power, they just let them pass through without hindrance. Even the Republican Guard does that too since Saddam never respected them for what they did.

5. Film: Jake shot Alonzo at the last minute (seeing that he was to get shot too) on the thigh and left them to the people, including the Russian gangsters to deal with Alonzo - only after he settles some things including his evidence. From what he learned about Alonzo owing money to the Russians and the forbidden rule of killing a fellow officer, he delayed and left Alonzo to his grim fate.
Real Life: Though capital punishment is objected by Britain and Australia, the Americans left it to the Iraqis to decide justice on Saddam.

The legacy of CRASH and the 1992 L.A riots was still a painful scar of the past for Los Angeles. There was a rift corruption among the D.A's office, the LAPD. Take the "Three Wise Men" in the film, each represents the upper levels of corruption. The three helped Alonzo to solve his problem by cashing out on Roger (Scott Glenn) and fabricated the fact that Roger is a drug dealer. As the result of that, the naive Jake was setup as the man who killed Roger in cold blood in front of witnesses and Alonzo the perpetrator. Even Garth Ennis modeled the crooked cop and the police Tom Price (as in The Slavers) from Bernard Parks.

Maybe I might get out of point, but reading the script again and noticing the parallels made me realized that the similarities that the Bush Administration is using to manipulate the people to invade Iraq. And the 3 Wise Men subplot also serves as the corruption in White House and currently the scandal of Alberto Gonzales and his men.