Teh tarik, soft drink prices should NOT go up

Practically all servings of popular drinks like teh tarik and kopi/teh ais are prepared using condensed milk, which already contains a lot of sugar. So there is no justification for any rise in prices for these drinks even with the recent 5 sen/kg increase in retail sugar prices.

There is no excuse for condensed milk factories to raise prices either; they should only be using bulk sugar supplies which are not covered by the subsidy. If these factories complain about rising sugar prices, it implies that they are "stealing" from the consumer (retail) supplies of sugar.

The same goes for soft drink and other bottled/can drink factories. They should also be using bulk sugar only. Anyway, a number of these factories have switched to using high-fructose corn syrup as a sugar substitute. So again, there is no justification for any rise in prices.

Petrol up 40%

Well, it's finally happened. The govt has removed most (all?) of the subsidies for petrol and diesel.

These subsidies were unsustainable anyway, with as much as RM40 Billion (with a B) paid out last year. That was money not being spent on infrastructure development, healthcare, education, public safety or agricultural programmes.

All kinds of money-making schemes arose as a result of these fuel subsidies, particularly smuggling or reselling. Economists would call this "arbitrage". Worse, we (the taxpayers) were subsidising the Thais, Indonesians, and Singaporeans, who earn more than us.

Anyway, here's what you need to know:

Petrol
From RM1.92 to RM2.70 (up 40.6%)

Diesel
From RM1.58 to RM2.58 (up 63.3%)

Take note of those percentages, because business owners will have to pass on these costs to consumers.

I'm a bit more fortunate than others, because I get around mostly with my kapchai (low-cc motorcycle). A full tank for my kapchai, which lasts 3 days, used to cost me about RM5.30. Now it'll cost me RM8.00. I expect kapchais will become more popular after this.

Plus, I hope there's a push for more fuel-efficient vehicles and also alternative-fuel vehicles.

(Image ganked from Waleska Alsieux's blog.)