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Economics Politics & government

[1364] Of off with fuel subsidy, but what about election?

At 10 per cent — the official estimate — of the fuel subsidy, the Economic Planning Unit in 2005 characterised the illegal outflow as “akin to giving to foreigners the subsidies intended for Malaysians”. Now that our neighbours have reduced their fuel subsidies, it is perhaps time to stop subsidising them and to take away the incentive to smuggle out our diesel by aligning our prices closer to theirs. [Narrowing differentials. New Straits Times. September 11 2007]

Finally, it sinks in one of the local mainstream media. But does this mean there would be a fuel price hike in the future?

I refuse to believe that the NST says such thing out of “mere” economic rationale. The possibility of somebody higher up told them so simply appeals to me. The NST is a government’s mouthpiece after all. If that is so, it would definitely be an odd move however since the general election expected to be just around corner. Or maybe, election is not so close after all!

The recent budget in my opinion itself might not be as populist as the previous ones, despite what I wrote preemptively. Hmm…

I have stated earlier that the government of the day has missed its chance to ride on positive sentiment due to slowing economy. There has been talk of having the election in November but given the latest news from Japan.

If I were BN, I would somewhat favor to have the general election at later dates, perhaps after the release of economic reports for the third or even the fourth quarter are out. I would ride out the bad news and wait for a better time. Maybe, after Chinese New Year in February when economic activities, local and abroad, are up due to seasonal demand. Therefore, from being too late, November now seems too early.

By Hafiz Noor Shams

For more about me, please read this.

3 replies on “[1364] Of off with fuel subsidy, but what about election?”

something funny for you to read…

At CNN, No Reuters, or bin Laden

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/business/media/10cnn.html?_r=3&oref= slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

and our own internal posting about this…

Reuters journalists win Bin Laden video exclusive
Sometimes news material reaches Reuters in strange ways. On Friday an amateur web watcher contacted a Reuters bureau in Europe and offered the company access to the Bin Laden video which was expected but had not yet appeared in public. Fast work by television and text staff in Europe and the Gulf established that the video was authentic and it was quickly distributed to customers.

The material remained exclusive to Reuters for some hours and won wide, well-credited play. The Islamist websites that used to publish such videos were all being blocked and even Al Jazeera, traditionally the first to run Al Qaeda videos, used Reuters material. CNN, which has recently dropped Reuters as a supplier, was left in the cold by the exclusive and scrambled for hours to access the tape from elsewhere. CNN were so uncompetitive on the story it merited a story in the New York Times.

The strong editorial performance on this story was emphasised the same evening by Reuters text staff in Washington, who secured a translated transcript of Bin Laden’s speech from an intelligence source, ahead of rivals. That allowed Reuters to build a strong story, complete with President George W. Bush’s reaction to the tape, while competitors were still trying to pin down what Bin Laden said.

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