Why I support floor price for petrol and diesel
I support petrol floor price because I love my children and hope to see my future grandchildren live happily.
Let’s face it, the level of pollution in our atmosphere now is quite high and apart from causing various health problems, it is also wreaking havoc with the weather and climate.
On top of that, oil is a non-renewable source of energy and it is finite. Some experts say we may run out of the black stuff within 50 years, more optimistic estimates say that we have 100 years of reserve.
If we continue to enjoy really low fuel price then we will foget the need to develop technology that improves fuel efficiency and we will also forget the need to develop alternative source of energy.
We can see how car companies are struggling to develop alternative drivetrain that offer real and significant fuel efficiency benefit without relying on the internal combustion engine.
All the fuel efficient designs such as direct petrol injection, low pressure turbo, clean diesel all rely on oil.
Meanwhile hybrid technology is stil too expensive and offer questionable benefits in terms of fuel economy.
The hydrogen economy seems eons away.
We know that most scientists believe that the future is hydrogen btu the question is how fast should we move towards the hydrogen economy.
Should we walk slowly and only run when we are out of time or should we run now and arrive at teh Hydroogen economy at our own pace so that we can dictate comfortably what our future should be.
If we arrive at the hydrogen economy before we run out of oil, then we have two sources of energy…. ad that is not really a problem is it?
Your points are valid, but currently our economy is tied too closely to petrol / diesel prices. Based on the people’s current earning power, any floor price for petrol, if implemented, should not be higher than RM2.00/litre.
I believe we need to immediately improve public transportation nationwide – not just KL, but nationwide. Currently, I alternate between taking public transport to work and hitching a ride in my friend’s car. The LRT service just does not cut it. While the travelling time between the stations is actually quite fast, the wait at the stations for the trains, and particularly the RapidKL buses are absolutely ridiculous.
Travelling interstate, we have a fleet of buses that are poorly maintained manned by drivers whom I quite simply am not confident trusting my life with. The alternative is flight or the KTM trains, which I heard are slow and not up-to-scratch either. Interstate and intracity public transport must all be beefed up.
There are a lot of people out there who would happily ditch their cars along with all the instalments, maintenance costs, and stresses in the traffic jams, but that they don’t have a dependable alternative to count on. An affordable and efficient public transport would instantly cut petrol consumption by a significant amount.
The other issue is that any sudden increase in petrol / diesel prices will drive costs of logistics through the roof. As demonstrated in the 78 sen petrol hike in June, this led to inflation rates unprecedented in the country’s history. With costs increasing, the poor and the middle class were increasingly squeezed as their salaries were not raised accordingly.
I believe there should be a minimum wage regulation that’s governed by cost of living indices and inflation rates. This would, in some way, move the country away from a subsidy-driven economy where the people are dependent on subsidies for all the various necessities to make ends meet.
Gunner, you are of course right, the floor price is just one aspect, we need to raise the whole economic floor to meet that floor price and the developed world.
If we do not want to have minimum wage, then we must allow the currency to rise in value until it is near parity with Western money, see what Signapore is doing
it also goes without saying that public transport needs to be improved.
the floor price incorporates a certain level of profit which MUST be ploughed back into energy efficient technology, the profit must eb ring fenced and ploughed back, it must bot be spent on anything else
Exactly, bingo. As you see, in the past few years, the prices of fuel and various food items have been steadily on the rise, but the paycheck of the average citizen has not grown bigger to accomodate these various increases. At the current economic climate, I personally disagree with having a floor price for fuel in place – though I believe that some measures must be put to prevent sudden fluctuations of prices.
However once our public transport has been raised to an acceptable level of service, and that the income of the people is big enough to absorb the increased cost of logistics for the various items they buy, implementing a floor price (and a higher one at that) makes perfect sense, as it would discourage wastage – though it would make every stab of the throttle a lot more painful. Ouch!
Wat eva u say is rgt.. If the Government also wants the people to reduce polution and save petrol for more years to come, y dun they offer cheaper price of hybrid cars and
eliminate the taxes(automotive related)?