Why Malaysia’s drastic fuel price hike is a blunder

malaysiatoday | ... At this time of booming commodity and petroleum prices, Malaysia as a resource-rich and a substantial net exporter of oil and gas should wallow in such wealth, but instead its people are groaning under economic hardships. This strange phenomenon is a clear indictment of failure of government, and the causes are attributable to long term and short term factors.

Long term factors: low income of the common people, due to decades of gross mismanagement. Prolonged political hegemony by a racist regime has devastated the political, economic and social fabric of the nation, as reflected in the depravity of its democratic institutions, racial polarization, and entrenched corruption and cronyism. Massive pilferage and squandering of public funds have impoverished the public coffer, while worsening economic malaise and widening income disparity under spiralling inflation have brought severe economic pressure on the common people.

Short term factors: the untimely and drastic increase of fuel price (41% for petrol, 63% for diesel) - by eliminating almost completely long entrenched oil subsidies in one go - has shaken the nation and caused an uncontrollable stampede to make hefty price increases across almost the entire spectrum of our economy, whether justified or unjustified. Reeling under this sudden inflationary attack, consumer confidence has slumped, further aggravated a weakened economy. The hardest hit are the poor who have found their currency shrunk overnight, and are now struggling to make ends meet.... selanjutnya.