Feeling the Pinch

Many thanks to Cassandra Soo for nagging me to get a blog, I have finally done so :)

Lately, it's all been doom and gloom in the papers, with talks of a possible world recession caused by surging oil prices and soaring inflation all across the globe, including Malaysia. By now, you would have to be living under a shell not to know that the price of fuel has increased by 78 sen to RM 2.70 and RM 2.58 for petrol and diesel, reducing the amount of subsidy to only 30 sen a litre and by doing so, also removing that comfortable cushion from global inflation by which we have all been living under recently. This move may not be the most popular, but it is by all means the most necessary, as it is impossible for the government to continue subsiding us. The bad news is that we have to brace ourselves for a further escalation of commodity prices such as food and travel costs, which will probably lead to further tightening of belts and penny pinching. The good news is that the extra money saved from the removal of the subsidies can be used for further investment in other sectors. (hopefully)

For now, all we can do is hope that the price of oil will not hit the ceiling (analysts forcast it may even hit $200 per barrel) and that the government does fulfill its promises of 100% upgrading and revamping the public transport system which is badly, BADLY in need of repair.

Actually, I did read a comment in the STAR newspaper a few days ago by I think the MAS chairman, saying he did not know why oil prices increased tenfold since the start of the year. He rubbished reports that it was due to a shortage in oil production, saying that there had been no decrease in oil output, and that the price was beng driven up due to speculative buying in the market *fuelled* (pun intended!) by fears of an oil shortage in the future. To combat the problem, he suggested the US halt all speculative trading on oil in order to stabilise the price and prevent it from rising further. Hmm, I actually wonder if that is true.

On a lighter note, congratulations to Rafael Nadal for winning his 4th French Open in a row (bad luck Federer) and Portugal, Croatia, Germany and Czech Republic for winning their opening matches at the Euro 2008.

Tonight: Italy vs Netherlands
Romania vs France

Prediction: Italy to win 2-1, France to win 2-0