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.

Informants are No Longer Safeguarded!

By law of any country, the witness who provides information to could swing the trial to prove a person either guilty or innocent, take your pick has to be protected at all costs through various means such of confidentiality. An example of the thing is of former mob-informant Henry Hill (who made famous with the film Goodfellas) who had to join the FBI's WITSEC program to ensure his safety from potential threats of backlash from Jimmy Burke and his associates.

Now, back to here, the recent arrest of Inspector Nordin Ahmad was by a dirty trick by the ACA. Against the Standing Orders of the IGP, the ACA actually circumvented the standing order and elicited statements made by informants (which of course contains) the identities of the informants. By doing that, this means, that the men from the other side can figure out who actually builds the case against the detainee.

Indirectly, this leads to the security of an informant together with the immediate ones compromised and no longer secured.

An affidavit prepared by lawyer C. Vijaya Kumar on behalf of Commercial Crimes Division Chief, Ramli Yusuff shows that the officers involved in profiling the Chinese Underworld are no longer safe because of the ACA's dirty tricks. And they are forced to recant the statements, review the identities of the informants and various things.

Big Pete's assessment now is that the ACA has the impunity to serve the Section 22B order of the ACA Act 1997 against a person, thus clearly disregarding the OSA Act 1972 and other provisions entitled to an informant. Now, not even the public is also spared from this brutal issue of order. Malaysiakini reports that lawyer R. Sivarasa and a worker of PKR were demanded to reveal the identity of the person who took the footage of the Lingamtape or risked facing jail time for obstructing justice.

The video footage shows that Siva was shown the notice of order by an ACA officer by the name of Chuah Lay Choo. This person was the second witness who testified in the Government vs Hoi Kam Fatt bribery case in 2000 - see case archive here.

This provides the clear clarity that informants in Malaysia as still yet to be safe from hounds.

Do you see now why a Royal Commission is needed badly?

The Kind of Crap That I Get From An Asshole

If you really want to voice your concerns regarding the welfare and the social status of the country, the first thing you would do would be to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper, say The Star. Tell them your grievances and hope that the thing will be published the next day or so.

But then, when you read the newspapers the next day, not all of your words that you've written appeared on a column.

That's because the editors had to be careful of publishing your article on their newspaper. If a line or a word that deems an insult and incision to something, they could be sued by the government under the Printing and Publications Act.

If that is the case, where else you can voice your grievances except writing it in your own blogs?

Blogging has become an alternative channel for people to write and pass the word around to people if they simply cannot have their exact words produced exactly on paper. And blogging spreads faster than newspaper as most articles are printed the next day.

But instead, the Bolehland guys especially from UMNO are hitting us instead of acknowledging our efforts in making our country a better place.

I just don't know why, but most of these guys are pre-Internet minded. They don't even know what blogging is at all, except for our brave MP - Shahrir Ahmad and the opposition members.

We instead are branded as liars by these Bolehland guys. What is adding more to the insult is that there is indeed the proof that there are 25 cyber-troopers under Azalina that deliberately spreads the slanders across blogs via comments that shows the opposition against the government. Even the PM's website was not spared. Ronnie Liu, a guy that I've met over a discussion forum last Saturday had seen the proof black and white on the page and reported to the police, not like Mat Tyson Taib who scrambled for a proof.

You should thank us that we did put a check on you guys.

And then the Son-In-Law called us as monkeys, bound by the law of the jungle.

He's an asshole that deems the truth as a lie.

I'll take that as an insult to a man's credibility especially that monkey insult against bloggers.



Most of my friends that I've met are branded monkeys by that asshole. Do you think he is that smart to do so? He thinks that blogging sucks big time. Someday, he and the Bolehland guys will get a taste of their own medicine.

And then Uncle ZAM called on people to ignore us -gobloks - stupid people. The excuses that he gave that we are anti-Asian is the kind of bullshit excuse to sway people from listen to criticism.

One of Covey's 7 habits: Seek first to understand before being understood.

The problem is that these guys don't understand us: what is blogging about.

PREHISTORIC DINOSAURS IN THE MODERN WORLD.

The thing right now is that most youngsters now are aware of blogging and the incredible power of doing so, if used for good. They can use to tell stories, write criticisms for the good of the nation and so on. It goes as far as those villagers. Hey, even our Malay friends in the village, particularly the older generations started to read more and more thanks to its influence and the help of the current generation.

But I had some confidence over three avenues:

A post by A. Kadir Jasin:

But I don't think the majority of bloggers and blog visitors will fall for the trick. All that they need to do is to be mindful of seditious remarks and comments that give people like Muhd Taib the legitimacy to lodge official complain.

As the saying goes, there are many ways of skinning a cat, even a big fat one like Muhd Taib. I have been in journalism for nearly 40 years now and I've seen situation like this happening many times before. I've also seen countless pembesar like Muhd Taib came and gone.

Just a thought, a disturbing thought...is it not possible that some mainstream editors might have a hand in Muhd Taib’s police report?

The second one is my own personal conviction:

I have the facts and truths to back things up if I am to write a social issue. I have the purpose of telling people to wake up and help to make Malaysia a better place. If I don't tell, the other people don't even know what's happening about. The dream will go on.

If there's a friend trapped inside, you need to pass the message for help...isn't that similar here?

I always held the famous line by Kahlil Gibran about truth.

The third one is about Jeff Ooi going to DAP (main opposition party)

"I cannot remain as a fence-sitter if change is going to happen"

He's going for elections, he wants to tell the things in Parliament as to make the people wake up over the things that they did not know through the sleeping gas of things spread by the ruling coalition. The Coalition did not meet its 2004 manifesto of tackling corruption and instead the rate still remains high. Religious tensions, this matter, all has failed to meet the targets set.

It would be a good thing if PM Abdullah Badawi acknowledge our efforts in helping to make a better place instead of letting the UMNO people hammering at us for nothing. We don't mind having a dialogue between the government and bloggers. It instead will help to bridge the gap between the high institution and the lower echelon through cyberspace.

If Khairy and the idiots of the Bolehland are trying to play hero by fighting, just imagine what happens if they lose. A laughing stock, an embarrassment, and so on...hard to count.

You See, I Have A Problem...

Before writing this post, I was split on deciding what would be the interesting title to be used for this post. At first I thought of using "Bad People Deserve A Bad End", which was the tagline used in The Punisher: Barracuda. Then again, I thought of one of the lines by Clarence Boddicker -the infamous cop killer who executed Murphy at the opening act of Robocop. During that execution, he said, "You see, I have a problem. The cops don't like me and I don't like them." I just thought, hey that's a some sort of a connector to the next part of the post.

Today I saw a very interesting article in the front page of News Straits Times. There is somewhat of a make-up poster of this:

This happened to be the poster of the two special dogs that the Domestic and Consumer Affairs Ministry used, with courtesy from the MPAA - The Motion Picture Association of America in an experiment to see whether it is feasible to set up a canine unit specially trained to sniff out polycarbonate - a vital ingredient used to manufacture the blank CDs that we carry around. Two days ago, the dogs helped the Ministry's enforcers to raid an apartment in Johor Bahru (the last town before Singapore) and seized about 10 million ringgit worth of pirated stuff. Apparently, because of the incident, the syndicate kings in the south decided to put up an undisclosed bounty on whoever can take out the dogs or bitches to them.

Seems like both parties are trying to cross over the actual lines drawn, and maybe try to take each other out. However, neither one of them know their own lines. Was it because of pressure from outsiders? Is it going to be the end of them as like the loan sharks (as announced in today's The Star)? I have no idea though. There are many endings to this situation, but I am no Kaileena, who said in The Two Thrones, "Of all the possibilities that I've seen, this held the promising of all." After, isn't she the Empress of Time, who knows the possibilities of the future?

A friend told me that the criminal rate in Johor is far much higher than the rate in Kuala Lumpur or in Penang. But I think the three are the same. However, in terms of notoriety, as according to him, criminals there, particularly snatch thieves are much more aggressive than ever. But I agreed in one point though - the number of snatch cases is far more than those two places. He claimed though of something, saying that those criminals there claim to have special blood in their veins - I won't go more just to avoid provocation - and there are far more illegal Indonesians there compared to K.L. Because of this though, he said that J.B has the most number of lifeforms worse than animals in Malaysia. I have no opinion though as I don't have a statistic to back his claim.

This would be the third day in the role that there's heavy rainfall in Klang Valley. And I really had to finish testing the JIRA bug tracker tool by tomorrow evening. I had to do a series of tests, including validation tests. The worst was that a field that I've set to put in the Resolve screen never showed up despite my firm believe that it was definitely in place! How could that be? But after that, the program crashed. Out of memory problems. I think that my machine does not have enough RAM to support handling of massive issues that might come. So suppose if the company decides to buy the software, it needs to be installed in either two workstations that has high memory.

The plan of visiting Ipoh on the 6th is back on schedule as the Sports Club Run was moved to the 14th. And with my friend calling me in the afternoon to see what time I could come down to town to meet him, I think it's going to be a great weekend for the three of us. But then I might have to post Saturday and Sunday's entries for this week on succession, say Monday.