8 posts tagged “inflation”
Kakakah. This is a funny statement. Here
"The country's poverty rate will increase from 3.7 per cent to 24.3 per cent if the poverty line is raised from the current RM800 to RM1,500 per household"
Why don't we just adjust the poverty line to RM100 per house hold so that our poverty rate is at 0.001%. Kakakah.
We can also adjust our SPM examinations passing mark to 1/100 so that our passing rate is 100%. Now everybody can pass! Kakakah.
And now we can impress everyone too!
Another funny statement here
"The inflation rate for the first five months of this year is 2.9 per cent, Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop said yesterday"
So if I follow the inflation rate of 2.9%, my favourite curry mee should cost RM5.66 (from RM5.50) and not RM6 now.
Sometimes you get the feeling that nobody really sits down to formulate at least a semi-permanent solution for our petrol price woes.
Firstly it was no selling to foreign registered cars within 50km of the border. ( Was Sabah/Sarawak considered? These two states have large borders with Indonesia and Brunei )
Then it was changed almost overnight. The petrol price was increased to RM2.70/litre and now everybody can buy!
Next there is a proposal for a two-tier pricing system, one for local cars, another for foreign cars.
Then there is the rebate system. First it was RM625 per car under 2000cc. Then it was announced the rebate would be extended to above 3000cc in Sabah/Sarawak. Now there is a RM200 reduction of road tax for 4x4 and trucks above 3000cc in Sabah/Sarawak.
When something is decided for certain, somebody please do let me know. I cannot keep up with the ever changing policies.
1) Hypermarts "in-house brands" are replacing "international brands" in their stores.
2) People removing items from their shopping carts at the cashier because they discovered they did not have enough money (prices went up).
3) People buy the cheapest cooking oils which is almost sold out and "luxury" cooking oils like sunflower, peanut and olive oil are left untouched.
4) The most popular items sold are instant noodles.
4) Places where parking is free starts to charge parking fee now.
5) Free food is the main agenda at government meetings.
6) There is political turmoil in the country.
7) When you're asked whether you want to retire at 56 or at 58 years.
8) When going dutch whenever friends gather together for the occasional "makan" is the norm.
9) When spare change are taken as well in the restaurants.
10) When the government insists that everything is OK
Looks like prices are going up again. Not surprising though. But somehow the government still tells us every thing is under control, GDP still on course, inflation still low etc etc.
My favourite laksa mee now cost RM6 for a large bowl and RM5 for a small bowl. Last year it was RM5.50 and RM4.50. The year before that, it was RM5 and RM4. That is an approximately 20% inflation from the last 2 years.
With the petrol prices up and food prices up, there is less spare change nowadays. Sigh...
Some of the reasons I gather from colleagues/friends who has left for down South.
1) The Ministry didn't pay a single cent for our postgrad studies but is utilizing our postgrad qualifications for FOC.
2) We are not asking for the sky but commensurate with our profession and qualifications, at least at par with other professionals.
3) The salary you get in S'pore in A YEAR is equivalent to 3-4 years work in Msia. We are not young any longer, we need to think of our financial security in the future. A classmate in other field is buying his 3rd condominium while we are still paying off our Proton.
4) The Ministry does not appreciate our services. Promises remain promises. Nothing ever materialize.
5) Promotion prospects here is ahem...extremely difficult due to some obvious reasons.
6) Intake for subspecialization is non-transparent, one moment they say you are eligable, another moment they say you're are not. Waiting for eternity in uncertainty is the norm.
7) Many senior consultants in the Ministry of Health has left for the private sector. Who is left to train us?
8) We have more than paid our dues from medical school in the form of our "national service" to the Ministry of Health.
How true! A friend echoed a common sentiment we should get slapped in our faces and wake up to the reality in life.
If we are only hoping for "altruistic" doctors to serve the nation, well, be prepared for a 2 years appointment. As it is now, in our general specialist clinics, appointments are as long as 8 months. Most doctors who stay back do so for family reasons or perhaps with plans to go to the private sector soon.
Recently a promotion exercise application was advertised in the Ministry of Health's website. Most of us submitted to the Hospital Administration Office within a week. Closing date was about a month and a half away. Two days before the closing date, a colleague found out our application has not been even submitted by the hospital office to the relevant departments yet! Efficiency Malaysian style.
I wouldn't bet on this proposal to materialize anytime soon, if it ever will. Proposals will remain proposals.
Just a funny poem I got from this blog which crudely illustrates the affairs of things in Malaysia.
Boleh Goes To Court
Boleh Only Good At Simply Tok
Boleh Only Good At Toking Cock
Boleh Took The Neighbour Go To Court
Neighbour Got The Island Boleh Got The Rock
Boleh Blame The Lawyer Not Prepared
Because Lingam Was Not Even There
Boleh Blame The Court Not Fair
Because Fairuz Was Not Sitting There
And talking about purchasing power in Malaysia, it's getting less compared to our neighbour down South. This is the receipt I got for ordering 2 glasses of "Lo Hon Koh" with ice in an open air hawker centre cum restaurant with plastic stools. 5% government tax?!! Half a glass of some "buang panas" drink topped up with ice is RM2 now. It's for "buang panas" alright, to cool down the customer after he sees the bill hahahahaha...
I never thought I'll be blogging about my shoes. Ever since I started blogging about a year ago, I have changed 4 pairs of court shoes !!! Let me tell you about the story of my court shoes...
I've been playing court games for as long as I can remember. When I was still schooling, I've always bought court shoes to play badminton, squash or even football! During my schooling days there were limited brands on the market. I think it was Dunlop who came out with these court shoes, then Carlton followed suit, then Yonex, Asics etc etc. Usually my court shoes will last me well over a year despite whatever abuse I threw at it including jogging, cycling and jungle trekking.
Then I bought a second pair of court shoes recently, about 5 months ago. This time I got a different brand with a "brand new design" and paid RM59.90 for it. Thinking having a "new design and technology" will mean much better quality (and it's more expensive too), I happily quickly put it to use. After 3 months of use, HUMONGOUS holes appeared at the sides and on the soles. I persisted using them for another month or so before throwing it into the dustbin (Which explains why I did not have the picture) What the .....!!!!!! Only after 3 months man !!!! And I just used it to play squash 2-3 times per week!
After that I bought this pair of shoes, my 3rd pair.
Today I've decided to get a new pair of shoes with the "older design", by the first brand. It has harder and thicker soles reinforced with hard plastic. This costs me about RM70 bucks despite on "offer". I certainly hope this pair last me longer than a couple of weeks.
Which makes me wonder, how come "newer designs and technology" fares much worse then the good old boring ones? And more expensive too. Are manufacturers now cutting corners and using inferior materials to boost profits? I hear of houses cracking after a few months, brand new hospitals leaking, buildings collapsing etc etc. Whatever happened to the pride and integrity of making good products? Or have they given way to $$$?
Does the RM300 bucks Adidas/Nike/Reebok shoes really worth that much? Are they of much better quality? Will they last longer? Or as the say you pay peanuts, you get monkeys and vice versa? Or am I just penny wise pound foolish?
Whatever it is, I'm never gonna spend RM300 bucks on a pair of shoes. I appreciate the value of money, and how hard it has to be earned. If I'm suddenly disabled where am I to find even RM1 dollar? Will people even spare me a dime? I've worked as a cashier before in a supermarket after SPM with a salary of RM300 PER MONTH. Many of my ex co-workers with families were just making ends meet with such a salary. I just cannot bring myself to be a spendthrift. I just can't. Even if I'm a millionaire, I still can't. Which sometimes brings conflict with my spouse :(
My frugality and "cost effectiveness" mind does influence my practice too. I've always recommend the most cost efficient and effective treatment to my patients. Which is why when I meet patients who says "Cost don't matter", " I can pay for A-Z", I just don't bother to explain much any longer. Any effort to explain will result in suspicion because somebody (whom they paid hundreds of dollars I suppose) told them you need A-Z investigations just to be sure despite many of these investigations have dubious value. And hey they are paying only RM5 to see me and who will listen to a RM5 ringgit doctor? Good things don't come cheap and cheap things aren't good right? I just love to see these patients in private practice in the future hahahahahaha! In any case I can always justify with "Just in case I'm wrong" hahahahaha. What to do....when people want guarantees. People just can't get the concept of there is no guarantee in health unlike the many "Tuisyen jamin lulus peperiksaan" out there.
Just came back from dinner. The prawn noodles shop has increased the price from RM4.00 to RM4.50. Seems like the price is being raised before the festive season. And our purchasing power has been reduced substantially again.
Just for comparison sake, I was given 20 cents a day during my primary school as pocket money. Of course I had some packed lunch as well :) However 20 cents in my school was quite substantial. It could buy a small bowl of noodles or a small roti canai with some "kuah". And 20 cents could buy a large bag of "kacang puteh".
Fast forward a little to the future. During my housemanship period, we were only given a miserly RM20 bucks per on-call. That is after slogging for 24 hours!! ( Which makes out to be 83 cents per hour!!! ). We often compared to the McDonalds worker who earned more than us on a per hour basis. And they are just post SPM "waiting for results" students. At times I wanted to buy some durians by the roadside. They were selling for about RM6 per kg which brings to about RM10 for an average size durian. After considering that my 24 hour on-call money can only purchase 2 durians, I lost my appetite. How sad...I wondered at times whether I should start planting durian trees instead.
Then the government decided to increase the housemanship on-call claims to RM25 per oncall. Yeah a RM5 increase which turns out to be RM1.04 per hour. I can vouch personally that many of my colleagues do not bother to claim this miserly amount. You have to fill in about 8 pages of forms to claim your on-call, then wait for some check to come in, sometimes expired already because nobody bothers to tell you about it. And some enterprising colleagues would prefer "locum" work outside with similar pay but the amount is per hour instead and 10 times less work.
I've asked more "elderly" doctors around and they said that at least housemans are being paid now as when they were housemans, they were paid nothing for on-call! I don't know whether this is true or not. I wonder what they ate during that time :)
On and off we have some people with high moral grounds saying that doctors should be altruistic and compare us negatively to Mother Theresa etc etc. I want to ask these people to start living in poverty first before opening their mouth. We live in a real world. How can one take care of other people when your own family cannot be taken care of adequately. As the Malay quote says "Susukan kera di hutan, anak mati kelaparan"
Fast forward a little bit more. Now at least the on-call claims for a houseman can buy several durians. But then the inflation catches up and the value of the amount drops back down. And my on-call claims currently is LESS than a houseman.
I think someone better tell our Minister in terms of the number of durians that can be bought with our on-call claims to put things into better perspective :)
You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. What do you expect?
Prices have definitely gone up. Slowly but surely going up. Today my favorite pan mee has gone up to RM4.50. I'm pretty sure it was RM4.00 a couple of months ago. A simple "leong cha" with ice is RM1.70 now.
This Tom Yam beehoon with 3 fishballs and 3 slices of fishcake is RM5.50. A plate of 10 fried wanton is RM6.00.
A remembered a recent incident which caught me dumbfounded. One lunch I decided to patronize my usual curry mee shop. I loved the curry mee. It costs RM4.00 for a small bowl and RM5.00 for a large one. After giving my usual order for a large bowl I sat down in anticipation. Finally it came and I gobbled it all up. Was delicious as usual. Then I asked for the bill. The young helper from the stall came and said RM5.50. I said "What? It is usually RM5.00." Then I asked "When did the price increased?" She giggled and said " BARU TADI !!!! " ( "just now!" ) What the heck !!! I was truly speechless. Retrospectively I commend the honesty of the young helper. She looked pretty innocent and I believed her. Haha! Quite funny come to think of it.
I paid and left feeling a little cheated. Why was the price increased the moment I walked into the shop?? I wasn't the first customer of the day. Today I dropped by to "ta pao" dinner from another vendor in the same shop and I saw the new price tag written on an A4 paper pasted over the curry mee vendor's menu confirming the new prices. I have yet to eat the curry mee there since then.
I know 50 cents may not be much but everything will follow suit soon.
How would you respond to a " baru tadi " price increase?
