Is Malaysia spiraling out of control?
Month in and month out all of you readers have been reading about how I bitch the UK is crappier than Malaysia and how if we ruled the world it would be different. Well today I’m going to discuss how the UK is better than my homeland. Yes you are reading correctly, I am actually looking down at Malaysia for once.
The one think I have learned here is that a Great Britain Pound (GBP) goes a long way. I can buy a Big Mac meal for just 1.99 GBP and I can buy a load of vegetables at the market for a measly price of 1 GBP. So at this point your probably bringing out your calculators and going 1.99 GBP multiply by 6.5 = RM 12.935, I can get a Big Mac meal for RM 9.99 here. As for the vegetables I ‘m sure I can get a lot for RM12 as well. Well give yourself a pat on the back, yes it is cheaper in Malaysia, that is if you are comparing it to Britain prices.
Think about it, if you were a fresh graduate from a local university working in a job for example the media industry, your basic pay would be around RM 1,600.00 to RM 2,000.00. But fresh graduates from the UK working in the UK get GBP 1,600.00 – GBP 2,000.00 as well. If you haven’t already caught onto the dilemma, the cost of living in Malaysia is just imbalanced.
Now back to my first example. I am a fresh grad working in the UK. I buy a Big Mac for GBP 1.99. Now if you are a fresh grad in Malaysia you’re paying RM 9.99! So even though we earn the same amount of money, mine last longer than yours. As you can see, it is a very serious issue.
- Big Mac GBP 1.99, RM 9.99 -
As kids we fail to understand just what inflation is. Our parents are always telling us “It only cost RM 0.05cent for a Laksa last time”. We would just laugh it off and spend out Rm0.50 (this is back in 92) and buy our own. Well look at it now, with bowls of Laksa all around PJ skyrocketing to a staggering price of RM3.80 a bowl you can’t help but notice it. The problem has always been that our paychecks have not risen along with the inflation.
Having big numbers is not bad as long as we have the money to buy it. Japan for example uses HUGE numbers. 100 Yen for a teddy bear? Now that’s wrong you say. But in Japan, 100 yen is just a coin. Its like what RM 0.10 is to us. It doesn’t hurt them because the average Japanese earns close to a million yen if not more a year (Channel 5 UK 2005).
So just how bad are the things in Malaysia? Well sadly, things are looking pretty grim. Lets just look at how much a part-time worker is paid. A friend who works in a cybercafe during the evening shift gets RM 5.00 an hour. Assuming he works 20 hours a week that is only RM 100. Multiply by 4 and you get RM 400 a month. With the average price of mix rice (chap fan) with 2 vegetable and 1 meat = RM 3.40 and we factor in 3 meals a day for a 30 day week. That comes to a staggering RM 306 a month. Leaving this part-time worker with just RM 94 to pay the bills, transport, rent and entertainment.
However in Britain, a student is working for Tesco. He earns GBP 6.00 an hour and works 20 hours. He gets GBP 120 a week and GBP 480 a month. With the price of a cheap frozen food meals at GBP 1 and he takes 3 meals a day, that comes up to GBP 180 just for food. That leaves him with GBP 360. Rent is GBP 200 inclusive of electricity and heating, transport is GBP60 leaving our British student GBP100 as extra spending money.
It should be rather clear now how this issue of inflation can effect us all and unless we start to do something about it soon, we’ll never move out of our parent’s houses or own a car or a house until we’re fifty. If you think that is bad, try imagining how hard it will be for our children? They always say that our children are our future, but how can our kids expect to achieve what we have done when we only did it at 50? And with rising inflation rates would it even be possible to send to them college or university? Or are doomed to spend the rest of our lives cooking and cleaning for our grand kids while they go out trying to make a decent living?
Please comment your opinions on this issue
Month in and month out all of you readers have been reading about how I bitch the UK is crappier than Malaysia and how if we ruled the world it would be different. Well today I’m going to discuss how the UK is better than my homeland. Yes you are reading correctly, I am actually looking down at Malaysia for once.
The one think I have learned here is that a Great Britain Pound (GBP) goes a long way. I can buy a Big Mac meal for just 1.99 GBP and I can buy a load of vegetables at the market for a measly price of 1 GBP. So at this point your probably bringing out your calculators and going 1.99 GBP multiply by 6.5 = RM 12.935, I can get a Big Mac meal for RM 9.99 here. As for the vegetables I ‘m sure I can get a lot for RM12 as well. Well give yourself a pat on the back, yes it is cheaper in Malaysia, that is if you are comparing it to Britain prices.
Think about it, if you were a fresh graduate from a local university working in a job for example the media industry, your basic pay would be around RM 1,600.00 to RM 2,000.00. But fresh graduates from the UK working in the UK get GBP 1,600.00 – GBP 2,000.00 as well. If you haven’t already caught onto the dilemma, the cost of living in Malaysia is just imbalanced.
Now back to my first example. I am a fresh grad working in the UK. I buy a Big Mac for GBP 1.99. Now if you are a fresh grad in Malaysia you’re paying RM 9.99! So even though we earn the same amount of money, mine last longer than yours. As you can see, it is a very serious issue.
- Big Mac GBP 1.99, RM 9.99 -
As kids we fail to understand just what inflation is. Our parents are always telling us “It only cost RM 0.05cent for a Laksa last time”. We would just laugh it off and spend out Rm0.50 (this is back in 92) and buy our own. Well look at it now, with bowls of Laksa all around PJ skyrocketing to a staggering price of RM3.80 a bowl you can’t help but notice it. The problem has always been that our paychecks have not risen along with the inflation.
Having big numbers is not bad as long as we have the money to buy it. Japan for example uses HUGE numbers. 100 Yen for a teddy bear? Now that’s wrong you say. But in Japan, 100 yen is just a coin. Its like what RM 0.10 is to us. It doesn’t hurt them because the average Japanese earns close to a million yen if not more a year (Channel 5 UK 2005).
So just how bad are the things in Malaysia? Well sadly, things are looking pretty grim. Lets just look at how much a part-time worker is paid. A friend who works in a cybercafe during the evening shift gets RM 5.00 an hour. Assuming he works 20 hours a week that is only RM 100. Multiply by 4 and you get RM 400 a month. With the average price of mix rice (chap fan) with 2 vegetable and 1 meat = RM 3.40 and we factor in 3 meals a day for a 30 day week. That comes to a staggering RM 306 a month. Leaving this part-time worker with just RM 94 to pay the bills, transport, rent and entertainment.
However in Britain, a student is working for Tesco. He earns GBP 6.00 an hour and works 20 hours. He gets GBP 120 a week and GBP 480 a month. With the price of a cheap frozen food meals at GBP 1 and he takes 3 meals a day, that comes up to GBP 180 just for food. That leaves him with GBP 360. Rent is GBP 200 inclusive of electricity and heating, transport is GBP60 leaving our British student GBP100 as extra spending money.
It should be rather clear now how this issue of inflation can effect us all and unless we start to do something about it soon, we’ll never move out of our parent’s houses or own a car or a house until we’re fifty. If you think that is bad, try imagining how hard it will be for our children? They always say that our children are our future, but how can our kids expect to achieve what we have done when we only did it at 50? And with rising inflation rates would it even be possible to send to them college or university? Or are doomed to spend the rest of our lives cooking and cleaning for our grand kids while they go out trying to make a decent living?
Please comment your opinions on this issue
posted by Danny Kia at 2:24 PM
1 Comments:
Lolz, RM1 Chicken Rice? Dude do you know what it is RM 4.00 in PJ? even as far as Taiping its already RM 2.80. That' is true, I did not mention the tax brackets.
Indeed Malaysia does have one of the lowest tax brackets around. But even with the lowtax, the cost of living is what effects you everday. I will be touching upon the prices of housing and transportation soon.
As for quality. Believe me that M'sia quality? Come on man. You know that the best quality Malaysian furniture is sent overseas man. Even our national car is crap compared to the oversea versions.
Perhaps can get more "cetax rompak" in m'sia la :). But yes you can get more in terms of quantity in Malaysia because there is no VAT like Europe.
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