Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Ramblings on the First Day of 2014 - Holiday in Malaysia, High Cost of Living

Happy 2014! I'm glad to escape the zero degree Celcius weather in the Midwest USA and have a short break in Malaysia. It was a non-stop, busy second-half of the year since late May. I overstretched myself in the summer by organizing a summer internship for a group of undergrads in my lab, extra-curricular teaching in Hong Kong and Beijing, and various research projects with my grad students. I returned to the States in mid-August, just on time to teach a new class that I didn't have time to complete the contents over the summer. I ended-up working on the class materials over every weekend. I'm glad the semester has ended, went to present some papers in Sydney, and meet my extended families in KL. BTW, Sydney trip was nice, but everything seems to be very expensive. Although the US and Australian currencies are at parity, the food and stuffs are twice more expensive there.

On the new year's eve, my soon to be 2-year old daughter was discharged from a hospital. It was for a high fever. Last July when we were in KL, she was hospitalized too. The last time was at Gleneagles, and this time was at Prince Court because they running out of beds in pediatric ward at Gleneagles. Small kids always get sick I guess. A 2-3 night stay cost us about RM3,000, that's slightly below USD1,000. When she was hospitalized in the States for the same reason early in 2013, the total bill was USD10,000. We are not rich, but grateful to have a health insurance to cover almost all the expenses.

Talking about high prices, we were nervous last night to drive home as a major street demonstration was allegedly planned to complain against the high-cost of living in Malaysia. The people want all the subsidies back for sugar, gasoline, toll roads etc. Yet again, opportunists are using some faction of the public to rile up. Let's step back and entertain the idea of continuing subsidies the way things had been done before - we'd end up subsidizing rich people, millionaires, billionaires, the guy who has just gotten an S class Mercedes as a new year gift, Singaporeans who drive to JB every weekend to buy gas and groceries etc. My two cent - remove all the subsidies, and increase direct cash to the needy, probably using the same criteria for the Br1M allocations. By the way, if you have so much time to demonstrate or bitching against the authorities day in and out, instead of working, you are probably not qualified.

The government is really in hot water. The new announcement to reduce government spending is good, but not enough. Let the market decide the fair car and house prices. Expedite transportation infrastructure projects so that it's possible to not own a car, and buy a reasonable house in Jasin and Muar but can still affordably commute to work in KL within 45 minutes (say with me, high speed rail!). Remove all the tax to protect Proton. Generations have been suffering to champion the brand. We don't have the competitive advantage to produce and sell 8-10 million cars annually. Governments should focus on infrastructure and education. Other artificial attempts to increase salary, control prices, champion fancy new industries etc. are doomed to fail. See my other two-cents on transforming Malaysia.

I wanted to ramble more especially on politics. I see that the so-called revolution some people are urging in Malaysia is eerily similar to lead to a political gridlock as in Thailand instead of the success in Indonesia. Let me discuss this hypothesis next time. I need to do some data collection to assist my research sponsor in the aftermath of a big freight train derailment you might saw in the news.

p/s: At the hospital, I was able to complete Daniel Kahneman.s Thinking, Fast and Slow. My previous post is a summary of some typical biases that may influence our decision makings