Adjustments

April 17, 2009 21:56 PM
Accept Fact That Price Keeps Rising - Fomca

KUALA LUMPUR, April 17 (Bernama) -- Accept the reality of the gradual rise in the price of consumer products, and learn to adapt to the situation by changing one’s lifestyle.

In making this call, Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations (Fomca) president Datuk N. Marimuthu said consumers should not point fingers at the government, everytime the price of consumer products rose.

Instead, they should find ways and means to adapt and deal with the problems, he said.

“Consumers should evaluate their spending pattern by focusing on only the necessary items,” he said at the launch of a book, ‘Isu Kenaikan Harga’ (Issue of the Rising Price) here today.

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http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=405023

Emphases added.

I actually read the report first in The Malaysian Insider (FOMCA: Stop blaming government for rising prices). What’s interesting is that the call was made not by a federal minister or senior government official but by the President of FOMCA, the nation’s umbrella consumer rights organization.

Malaysians generally lack understanding of how the market economy works. Partly it is because the government, as part of its social agenda, has long intervened in the market through multitudes of price controls, subsidies, etc. Many students in my class, even after we’ve gone through the topic of the market, still at the end of the semester say that prices of all goods and services are set and imposed by the government onto sellers and buyers.

Sometimes I think that they’re all closet socialists. :P