Friday, July 16, 2010

Removing Subsidies, Doing The Right Thing

Hantu Laut

I hope this would be the beginning of the end of spoiling Malaysians with all those subsidies and the beginning of taking the nation to higher level. The Prime Minister is doing the right thing to do away with the subsidies in phases so as not to burden the people.

Removing the subsidies must be replaced by increase in income for the people.Malaysia must move out of the low-cost mindset and into higher productivity and higher per capita earning.

Malaysians still have low productivity compared to places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. These are the countries we should be using as our yardstick to higher productivity and better growth.

The "omong-omong kosong" culture during working hours are some of the reasons for low productivity. Malaysians have the tendency to while away instead of while-you-wait in performing their tasks and the biggest culprits are public servants.

Increase wages but make sure they give back in return better output.The PM should also assure Malaysians that the saving would not be wasted on cronism and corruptions.

3 comments:

SM said...

HL,

We are not yet a Developed Nation where we can have GSTs & have subisdies cut.
If the BN Govt. was clean & if they had not "lost" ALL those Billions by wastage & corruption (we ALL know the list of stuff they had done where ALL those Billions disappeared!), we would not need to have subsidy cuts & we would not have to have the GST soon.
The Govt. is bankrupt (spent all those Billions in the by-elections too right?), so now they have to take more from the people. Our Taxes should have been enough (used to be enough...what has changed?!).
But maybe you are so rich that you don't feel the pain...but the common man on the road will feel it...just wait until the prices of other services start rising as a result of these cuts!

gram.kong said...

SM,
I agree with you in that respect that's why I said in my last paragraph that the PM must assure us those savings will no go to corruptions and cronyism.

I still believe we must remove subsidies and increase wages and improve productivity, otherwise, we would forever stay a low per capita nation.

Look at Felda, even the settlers 2nd generation refused to take over from their parents, they would rather go to towns and cities to become office boys, Mat Rempits and other low paying jobs.

You know why? Because Felda are run by morons, they expect the settlers to work blood,sweat and tears but pay them miserably.Can you survive earning less than RM1500 even in the kampong?

By now, the settlers should be paid incentive in relation to the price of palm oil over and above their normal earnings.The higher the price the better should be the incentive.I understand Felda settlers are as poor as when they first started.

They claimed their profits are lower
because of social obligations.That's a lot of craps.If true, why are the settlers still poor and some just abandoned their plot or pass to Indonesian workers who are prepared to accept lower wages.

SM said...

HL,

Yes, I agree that subsidies should be cut off one day. But not just yet. We are not ready. We are certainly not ready for GSTs either...when we do become a developed nation...probably in 3030!
As for those morons running FELDA...well...who put them there?
All those morons running our country...who put them there? Ooops! Actually we put them there! It's our fault...but never too late...we can change that in the next GE...maybe it will start with getting rid of Taib (Marcos & Suharto re-incarnated!) & his corrupted Sarawak State Govt next year?!