Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Virgin blogger's Maiden blog

I've never thought of myself as a blogger. Choon Yew the blogger? You've gotta be kidding??!! But then, however, I guess I too have lots of things to rant, complain, express that I'm not quite sure who'd like to listen. Well, I guess, that's good enough reason to start a blog.


I'm not a chronic complainer, but how I see things work in this country, there're shit loads of things to complain about!!!??? There's the price of petrol now, there's the seemingly controversial handling of some "I'd rather not mention" court cases, etc etc.... The list can go on and on and on....


And about expressing, now, I'd see myself as an expressor ( is there such a term??). I'm pretty straight about a lot of things. If I like something, I'd tell, and if I'd see something I don't like I'd sure as hell say too.





Well, it's been speculated today that many petrol pumps in my beloved Malaysia might be closed or will only accept cash in protest. This will happen for four days or maybe more. Commuters accuse the petrol dealers as heartless businessmen to maintain their profits. But that's not how I see it. I don't own a petrol station, but I know for sure that the margin (which is government controlled, btw) is very slim. So, if a motorist uses credit cards, the relevant bank will charge a 1% admin fee to the poor dealer. When the price of petrol has increased dramatically, the 1% now is RM 0.027 for petrol and RM 0.0258 for diesel. And considering their slim margin, that's a big cut from their profit (if there's any left).


And from a friend who owns a petrol station, I've been told that most of his products (petrol and diesel) are being sold at cost price, after minus operating costs, if credit cards are being used. I know motorists are already frustrated enough with the price increase, and hence this will frustrate them even further. But I'm sure these petrol station operators have family to feed and bills to pay too. I totally understand on their need to protest. I think there are other ways the government can cut down on their fund expenditure. They can pressure the banks to reduce the admin charges for processing credit card sales in petrol stations for example?? Maybe.

6 comments:

yapthomas said...

Our money are bound to be in someone's pocket.. Just that we don't know who's. Le Sigh....

Anyways.. congrats on starting this new blog. :)

Daryl Teo said...

Thanks for highlighting the dealers' plight with compressed margins. Never saw it that way, guess we were too caught up with side of things as consumers! Cheers!

nyx said...

yay! welcome to the world of blogging! *hugz*

kiLikiNa said...

welcome to the blogging world! i totally agree with you. the government should find a way around this problem and many other problems that we have. sigh....

-jOAnnE- said...

maybe we should get uncle billy to blog as well. then we'll get first hand info on all these petrol shit!!! hehe

Chooney said...

Hey....thx for all the comments. First post and I've got 5 comments. So, that's good or bad?? Thx anyways!