Price Of Rice Cheaper In Singapore?

Latest I heard there are rumours that the Prime Minister will be “asked” to retire by March of 2014. (Err I usually hang out with pro BN, pro UMNO types ok. This is our side talking.) Who will replace him is also being discussed.

I dont know if this will really happen or not but it shows the desperation that a very large number of pro UMNO people feel. They really want the PM to go. Someone should start a public signature campaign to see how many people want to see the PM go.

Anyway when the petrol price went up in September 2013, the Minister of Domestic Trade said the following :

Tue, 03 Sep 2013

• Domestic Trade Minister Hasan Malek said this quoting a study done by the ministry on the effect of the fuel price increase, the New Straits Times reported.
• Food prices to go up only by 0.1% following the 20-sen hike in RON95  
• Hasan told traders not to raise food prices, adding the fuel price hike was unlikely to affect food production costs.
• “..we see no reason for them to mark up food prices as a result of the rise in fuel costs,” he added.
• Najib announced yesterday a 20-sen hike in RON95 petrol and diesel prices
• new prices will save government at least RM1.1 billion this year

It is pretty tiring to keep saying again and again how simple the Cabinet Ministers are. I mean this is a Minister. He honestly felt that :

• fuel price unlikely to affect food production costs
• no reason to mark up food prices

What about the impact of higher tolls, higher cukai pintu, higher electricity tariffs, higher taxes, higher everything on food prices? Does the gomen feel that despite all these increases the food prices will not go up also? How is that possible?  Everything will go up – not just food prices. Sewa akan naik, harga kain akan naik, harga baju akan naik. Everything will go up.

I have said this many times : this is the Proton School of Management again. These people obviously think that “Buy high sell low” (beli mahal jual murah) is a good thing to do. (It is ‘buy low sell high’ ok)

That is what the Minister is saying. He said that it is ok for the food producers and food sellers to suffer higher costs. But they must still keep their selling prices low.

He said the fuel hike will cause only 0.1% increase in food prices? How could the Minister have been so precise? Why not 0.05% or 0.2%?

This is also why the people have almost completely lost trust in the gomen. The gomen talks rubbish. They even tell lies.

Yesterday another pro UMNO person with whom I had a conversation for the first time said the gomen is “sneaky”.  A good example is “Tengku” Adnan’s statement that the DBKL is reducing the assessment rates from 6% to 4%.  Well thank you Babuji. But this is coming after a hailstorm of protest against the doubling and tripling of the assessment values.

For example if you paid 6% before on a property assessed at RM8000 that works out to RM480. Now if the assessment for the same property has been increased to RM21,000 and you pay 4% that works out to RM840. That is actually a 75% increase in the amount you are paying. So the gomen is being sneaky. They say they have lowered the assessment rate but they have more than doubled the assessment values.  And  Babuji thinks he is being very clever and fair at the same time.

A friend who is in the restaurant business gave me the following price increases of food items over the past few months (three to six months) :