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Tuesday 5 August 2008

Votes for Sale

That's right. Votes are indeed for sale in Malaysia. BN has offered up to RM 0.30 per litre of subsidy for petrol, while our friend Anwar Ibrahim made a more generous offer of RM 0.50 per letre of subsidy for petrol. I wonder will someone counter offer and dish out free petrol.

Yup, the politicians are into vote buying, be it the ruling or the former ruling. It does look like a Friends for Sale or Votes for Sale application out of Facebook. The sadder part is, most Malaysian votes are actually up for grabs this way. It is the mother of all lelong (auction) in Malaysia. Now, USA must be happy that free-trade and democracy is going well, hand in hand.

Anwar even went on to say, Petronas is profitable - so, the entire Malaysia should benefit from it. Huh? Did he read the Little Red Book by Chairman Mao when he was doing time? Petronas, by and large, is a private entity. Sure, some would argue the government shouldn't have sold it. But Anwar didn't bother to say - how much exactly of Petronas' profit is from Malaysia. I am pretty sure a large chunk of it is from overseas. So, why on earth so Malaysians get those profit? Wouldn't such statement scare the daylights out of foreign investors? What's next? Put for subsidized Intel CPUs for Malaysians?

The sad thing is, Malaysians enjoy being buggered. For the purpose of argument, let's say it is 50 cents per litre - the subsidy. And being patrotic, I drive a Proton Waja. Know something? Excise duty is RM 11843 while sales tax is RM 5758 for a stupid Proton Waja. So, the total tax is RM 17501. This is enough subsidy for 35202 litres of petrol. Assuming I use about 30 litres a week (or about 350 km per week, which is reasonable), it bloody takes me about 1170 weeks to re-claim my taxes. That works out to be 22 years. So, Anwar, go do something with yourself on the so called subsidy. It is actually pre-paid petrol, which in after 10 years, the car is rotten and I will have to pre-pay for more petrol. Ok, you may use more petrol, even by doubling it up to 60 litres a week, it is pre-paid petrol for 11 years. Will a Proton last 11 years? Mind you, these are based on a lousy Proton Wira. (I've not included road tax yet!).

A well played game indeed by the politicians. Using the rakyat's money to buy the rakyat's votes. Malaysia Boleh!

So, to my fellow "Votes for Sale" rakyat, please ask the bloody politicians to GET RID of the SUBSIDY. At the same time, GET RID of the TAXES! Now, I would like to see a politician say that. Otherwise, we are all just buggered, one way or the other. It doesn't matter if we are getting shafted by a gay guy or getting shafted by a lady with a strap-on. The nett result is, we are buggered!

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