Right, it was your parents’ stupidity for voting the monster and his UMNO regime for the last 50-years so you shouldn’t get the blame. But if the same regime is returned to power again in the next general election, then you’re equally idiot, if you choose to cross the “X” next to the “dacing” symbol representing Barisan Nasional.
One of the reasons given in my article for holding on any new car purchases was the political reason. Today, opposition Pakatan Rakyat launches a new initiative in its bid to lure the young voters – abolishing excise duties on cars. It seems they do read blogs for new ideas (*including FinanceTwitter, tongue-in-cheek*) on how to swing fence-sitters.
This latest carrot will definitely send Najib administration into defensive mode and you can bet some money that the publicity-crazy prime minister will counter-offer in order to make himself looks good. To those who read our article and halted their intended purchase - congrats. To those who did not, we reserve this for another day - “We Told You Already What !!” (*grin*).
The whole local automotive policy was a genius mechanism to suck people’s hard-earned money. Whether you’re buying a poor man’s Proton or a luxury BMW, you’re contributing to the government’s (read: UMNO) coffer to the tune of an estimated RM6 billion every year, thanks to the generous excise taxes. If there’s one project you should write for your PhD thesis, this is one of it – “Instilling National Pride while Milking Peoples’ Grapes to Dry”.
You may not know this but besides the mind-boggling excise taxes, the local automobile industry was also brilliantly designed so that the cronies are laid on top of the pyramid-like supply chain of spare parts. If you’ve been into MLM before, you’ll understand what I mean.
Now, there’re many ways to skin a cat. While Mahathirism has been very successful in skinning ignorant peoples’ wallet through privatization (to the cronies), it seems the grand plan has reaches its tipping point. Don’t make a mistake about it. The present government has not stopped skinning your hard-earned money.
On the contrary, the fear of losing the federal government only hastens their greediness. Putting the controversial Selangor water issue aside, the automotive industry saw prices of new model such as Toyota Camry and Honda Civic skyrocket without good justification. Heck, greediness knows no boundary – even an existing model was affected when Volkswagen Malaysia suddenly raised the price of both the 3-door and 5-door Polo GTI 1.4-TSI by a whopping RM34,000 a piece this month.
It was so bad that Volkswagen has to clarify on its Facebook that the price hike (or rather rip-off) was due to “authorities”. If the opposition is smart enough, it should re-strategize and propose more offerings on the table instead of screaming till foam at mouth about corruption. If you were to document every UMNO’s corruption, you can stack the files so high that it can make rounds of trips to the moon and back to planet earth. This latest sexy offering of slashing excise duties may not be as juicy as our proposal of giving away an AP (approved permit) to every citizen but it is good enough to raise millions of young voters eyebrows (and hopefully votes). This is one of the many ways to skin UMNO’s arrogance.
Sure, opposition via PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli may be testing water and toying with youngsters’ appetite with these latest goodies. They may not be serious after all about slashing the excise taxes in totality but even if they can reduce the present tax bracket of between 85% – 135% by half, that is good enough to cheers.
After all, what could you possibly lose with such proposition? This is hilarious but just when PM Najib thought he could buy your votes again with another round of BRIM RM500 cash in the pipeline before the coming general election, the opposition is dishing tens of thousands in saving for an affordable car.
If the Church of Scientology makes money primarily by auditing which could run to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Doctrine of Mahathirlogy makes money by selling (obsolete) national car which run to tens of thousands of ringgit. And this is only Proton pet project, mind you.
The former prime minister may think his Mahathirlogy still works with his laughable threats of communists, terrorists, 13-May racial riots, police brutality and whatnot but if the opposition can pull more similar rabbit from its hat to help ease the burden of the people, the old dictator may decide to take the earliest flight out of the country before the next general election results is announced.
Actually there’re many other proposals which are dear to the average-Joes that can be used to send Najib administration to its kennel with tail between his legs but we’ll reserve that for another article. It’s time consumers dictate the prices of the basic necessity – an affordable safe car without costing an arm and a leg.
The fact that a Malaysian has to pay 5-year salary compares to their Facebook American friends’ 1-year salary to own the same car is simply outrages and insulting. And you can start doing that by not buying any car at all. That’s right, it’s all about basic supply and demand economy. When the cronies can’t make money in the automobile industry, they’ll panic and have no other choice but to lower their prices.
If a simple boycott of Mahathir crony’s Gardenia bread could send them screaming in pain, imagine the impact if everyone stop buying new car and make use of whatever left from their existing car.
Moving forward, you should know how to vote if you wish to be able to purchase Prevé 1.6 Premium CVT at RM44,000, Honda Civic at RM67,000 or F30 BMW 3-Series 320d at RM149,000. The choice is no brainer.
