i love this thread, full of different opinion and personal values.
to csl: i like your positive thinking on how we can adjust ourselves to prevent further damage from the fuel hike. its just like compare A and B with the same salary of rm1800 (fresh grad pay). A smokes and drinks, B doesnt smoke and doesnt drink. When petrol hike went up, A complains, "effing hell, petrol go up again knnccb, how to survive la like that..." B doesnt spends on uncessary items such as cigarettes and probably has some extra saving to compensate for the lost subsidy, his only complain is probably lesser savings compared to before. instead of saving 400, maybe now he saves 200.
what csl prob wants us all to understand is that, A can help himself to negate the subsidy impact by: 1) smoke less, drink less. 2) smoking isnt necessary, so why do it? 3) water > alcohol. all these will in turn be a small lifestyle change for A. He has the right to smoke and drink all he wants with his money. But it is also up to him to manage his money wisely knowing the fact that subsidy has been removed, thus adjust to it rather than complain to it. complaining will get you no where, your boss wont pity you with a higher salary, your govt will give you rm625 to shut you up for a while, but in the end, it is yourself that can only control your spending/saving habits to adjust to a small thing like the fuel hike.
I don't necessarily agree with the bolded statement. If we all become lemmings and do as we're told, how can we be a forward thinking society? How can we hope to survive in a global climate? Some of us have taken larger steps than others. Some have voiced their discontent through rallies (e.g. BERSIH & HINDRAF) while others have done it through voting, as evident in the recent elections. The people are not happy and now finally, they have acted.
Are they going to restore the subsidies now that they have removed it? Of course not. We can however make a ruckuss to deter them from spending unwisely on stupid projects. We can let them know that if this continues, there will be more unrest in the nation and we can give them a glimpse into what may happen during the next elections. We were unhappy in the past, but at the same time we were contented. Recently though, corruption has become more and more evident as a higher expense to the society. You can take a little but you have to give back a little. The irony of it is that early in the tenure of this administration, it was said that they wanted to fight corruption. hmmm :rolleyes: