YOURSAY | Businesses will use any excuse to hike prices

YOURSAY | ‘They simply find a way to survive and hopefully thrive.’

Don't speculate on rise in goods prices – Armizan

'Don't use targeted diesel subsidy as excuse to increase price of goods'

OrangePanther1466: Price hikes are inevitable. Sure, 33 categories of transportation will still enjoy some form of subsidy, but the whole ecosystem is affected.

Telling people not to increase prices just because there are still subsidies within the supply chain will just not cut it.

Don't get me wrong. I am not advocating for foreigners or the T20 to continue enjoying the subsidies. I am questioning the implementation approach.

Price increases and inflation are unavoidable as sure as the sun rises tomorrow.

I am advocating "biting the bullet" and progressively increasing the ceiling caps over, say, three years or even longer.

Perhaps a 10 percent increase every quarter will give people time to adjust to it. Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and even Cambodia have fuel prices more than double ours, but the people continue to thrive. Why can't Malaysians?

People will have to be weaned from the "tongkat" subsidy mentality which the ruling elite have instilled over decades to remain in power.

The same approach should also be used for other commodities like rice and cooking oils.

If you need to drag it longer, say over four years, to achieve market price, so be it. At least we know the endpoint.

More importantly, investors know we are on the right path to a market-driven economy.

Subsidies in the form of direct cash transfers can still be had for the deserving B40 cluster. This will ensure there is minimal leakage.

The currently proposed Budi Madani scheme is just too unwieldy to manage and may not meet its objective.

Vent: Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Armizan Mohd Ali, it is your duty and responsibility to ensure that unscrupulous traders, retailers and other service providers do not hike prices and cause runaway inflation.

As if the cost of living isn't high enough now. As for your reassurances Deputy Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Fuziah Salleh, when have traders (and others) been “rational” about price increases?

Meanwhile, we will give you the benefit of the doubt while we await the rollout of the subsidy rationalisation and see what action Fuziah said her ministry will take against errant traders and others.

HJ Angus: Since when did traders ever need a reason to increase prices? They will simply find a way to survive and hopefully thrive.

It's only the people employed in the private sector who bear the brunt of inflation as the government takes care of civil servants mainly.

Hmmmmmmmm: So, not speculating will stop prices from increasing?

You can have a fool-proof mechanism to ensure that the prices of goods remain unchanged, but for the workers of the vendors, their cost of coming to work now has increased because they do not enjoy the subsidies.

They will want an increase in wages. So, the vendor needs to increase his prices. Back to square one.

Malaysian.1548239364942: I challenge any of these so-called “experts” to buy a basket of basic goods before and one month after the subsidy removal kicks in.

Then come and tell us with a straight face that the price did not increase. In theory, a lot of things should not happen.

Corruption should not happen, lying in a manifesto to win elections should not happen, and the stealing of people’s money should not happen.

But they happened, so let’s get back to reality.

DoNotKnow: The issue with all these "scholars" is that none of them have any practical experience, so a lot of times, they have no clue what they are talking about.

A lot of businesses have been enjoying subsidised diesel. You may now say they never deserved the subsidies in the first place, but they have been enjoying them nonetheless.

Now that the diesel subsidies have been removed for these so-called "underserving" businesses, what happened to their costs?

Do we need these "scholars" to be geniuses to know that costs will go up? And when the costs of businesses go up, what do businesses do?

Chefoo: Theory and practice can never get together.

Theoretically, the price should not increase, but this won’t be the case practically.

Mind you, even the roti canai stall owner will either increase the price on the pretext of high transport costs or shrink its size to maintain the same price.

At the end of the day, the regular folk are the ones paying all the extra costs.

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