Change Lifestyle...Eat Porridge???

Aggressive measures my foot.

It's the economy, stupid! And it's all those short-sighted policies that has caused our economy to lag behind and become ever more dependent on FDIs. And this in turn has caused the average income of the lower and middle income groups to rise too slowly to cope with the ever increasing cost of living.

Like I have mentioned in the comments section of my previous entry, the Ringgit doesn't have the buying power. Ask the average Joe in Malaysia, how long does a RM50 note last? How much can RM1 buy today - as compared to 10 years ago? Keeping that in mind, how much has our average base income increased in the last 10 years?

With the highly skewed inflation rates released by the government every year, it is hardly a surprise why the our yearly increments (if we have any) - for lower and middle income groups - is so low. Note that Malaysia's inflation rate (consumer price) for 2007 is 3.8%.

Simple example without going into too much details. As I usually do, I buy my lunch from a nearby economy rice stall. And these days I pay around RM3.50 for a plate of rice and dishes, where I was only paying RM3.00 a few months back for the same stuff. Sometimes for dinner, I go for a plate of nasi goreng at the local Nasi Kandar restaurant and the price has now gone up from Rm3.50 to RM4.00. Let's do the Maths - in both cases the rise in prices has gone up more than 10%. While they are fervently trying t control the prices, it is not working.

I agree that not all the prices has gone up by that amount - my point is that the rising inflation today is not on special items or things that we buy for luxury. These are food items and if our Uncle Lah wants me to change my lifestyle - I wonder what I should eat next. Porridge? Can't even fall on bread these days, as it too has gone up in price.

Also, perhaps Uncle Lah can provide me with an adequate public transport system so that I need not drive and pay tolls?

On one hand, they are asking us to spend in order to keep the local economy up. And on the other hand, Uncle Lah wants us to save. Cannot lah like that...most of my spending is already on basic stuff...does he even realise what is happening on the common folk's level?

My qualm is really not about rising prices or rising inflation because the the world economy is really not doing too well these days and I do understand the economics of it, albeit from a layman's view. But these problems or the pain we need to go through when things go bad would be much less IF our country's economy was more robust and that its people has better buying power with their earnings.

And instead of getting the economy back on track, our Uncle Lah falls on to controlling prices, setting "food granaries", "asking us to change our lifestyles", spending more on mega projects,...

What a load of crap. All these does nothing to right the fundamentals of Malaysia's economy nor does it strengthen our capabilities to compete globally. All these are short term measures that would only forestall the worse to come. Perhaps Uncle Lah thinks that by then, he would have retired and become a Tun.