Will Malaysia go bankrupt because of subsidy?

Many months ago while we were having our routine town hall meeting, an employee raised up the question of should the company giving some forms of subsidy to assist its employees in view of the escalating cost of living. As expected, this guy was bombarded by our CEO, who was still the CEO cum President at that point in time but recently told to take leave of absence due to cost overrun issue. The CEO urged the employees to change the mentality of over depending on subsidy. To him, subsidy is nothing but a burden to the country.

When you drive a big luxury car costs several hundred thousand ringgits, would you worry about the petrol prices going up by 20 or 30 cents per liter? If you can afford to stay in a big bungalow worth millions of ringgits, would you worry about the prices of sugar or rice or whatever household necessities going up? Surely you won’t, as you are wealthy enough to live an extravagant life and the issues of cost increase by 20 or 30 cents is too petty to talk about. But what about the middle class or poor people? Would their life be affected if the government decided to remove the subsidies? Surely they will, the removal of subsidy will create a chain reaction which could be far beyond our apprehension.

I guess we have to realize that not many people in this country are rich enough to enjoy the luxurious life styles. Not that they are lazy but circumstances in life are not in their favor, if you are born an average person with average look and not so smart brain, can you blame your parents? You can’t. Neither can you blame your father for him not a rich fella like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. And despite all your hard work you only manage to earn a meager, to support your family from neck to neck because you are only an average person, what would you do, go and rob a bank so you will become rick quickly?

The issue of government debt should not be blamed solely on the subsidy. Are we saying that our government is so efficient that they can manage our resources so efficiently and no misuses or misjudgments or no corruptions. Mega projects cost billion and billion of ringgits benefiting only big businessmen and not the commoners. APs are given to some people benefiting crony but burdening common people. Corridors here and corridors there but we don’t seem to be benefiting anything. Don’t forget, the people in this country are not only getting subsidy, we are also giving subsidy to Proton notably. Because of proton, the foreign cars are ridiculously expensive here.

It is such an irony of democracy that the lawmakers always comprises of the minority rich people which are making the laws for the majority of poor people like you and me. These buggers are driving big cars, occupying luxurious offices in the metropolitan, wearing neat Armani, puffing expensive cigars and drawing the plans to cut subsidy which is meant to lower the cost of living for majority of the poor people.